


To Shadows We Are Slaves

by Hatterized



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Dom/sub, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-War, Smut, Stressed Rick, Subdrop, Touch-Starved, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2019-09-13 04:12:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 73,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16885401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hatterized/pseuds/Hatterized
Summary: Almost two years after the war with the Saviors, the communities are beginning to thrive and Rick Grimes is at the head of it all. His friends and family look to him for guidance in this new world they've created, but when he's alone, he's cracking from both the pressure of leadership and the losses he endured during the war.It seems like the only person who can see what's really going on with Rick is the man who's always been able to pick him apart- Negan.





	1. Never Enough

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so excited to start posting this fic, I've been cracking away at it for ages and I think I've finally hammered out enough to feel secure in sharing it!

Six hundred and forty-two days. Negan was pretty sure of his count and, cliché as it was, kept on marking it on the wall with a tiny scrap of stone that had chipped away from the brick. It helped that Rick would always tell him how long it had been when he asked. He didn’t like to do that, though- it felt like weakness. Maybe Rick couldn’t tell just how badly he needed to know the exact number of days. Maybe he couldn’t see it in the hollow, hungry desperation that pervaded his every thought. He only ever asked when it got bad and he slept too long and he wasn’t sure whether if he had been dead to the world for hours or days.

Rick was the only person who ever willingly visited Negan in his cell. That wasn’t to say that Rick was his _only_ visitor, but he was certainly the most frequent. Occasionally it would be Michonne or Tara or Aaron. A handful of times it was the priest, who was looking creepier than ever with his one dead eye. Every so often it was Siddiq, the cute, doe-eyed doctor that had saved Negan’s life and stitched up his throat. He didn’t come too often, though- just when Negan complained of a stomachache or a sore throat or claimed his hand was bothering him. That last one was always a lie- Siddiq had done a fine job of cleaning up the damage the backfiring gun had done. The only evidence that Negan’s right hand had ever been a bloody mess was the spiderweb of scars between his thumb and forefinger. Really, the only reason his hand ever hurt was because of overuse. Him crying wolf was probably why Siddiq rarely showed up anymore.

The others only visited him when Rick was too busy to bring him meals. With little else to do, Negan had come to recognize their footsteps as they descended the stairs- Michonne’s were stealthy and light, Tara’s were noisy and uninhibited, Aaron’s were quick and sure.

Despite Rick being his most frequent visitor, Negan always felt a coil of excitement in his gut when he heard the man’s heavy, booted footsteps echoing down into his chamber. He was lucky in that way, that his favorite visitor was also his most frequent.

He took some satisfaction in noticing that more and more these days, Rick looked tired. And not just woke-up-early-to-tend-his-crops tired, but bone-deep weary. He spoke of the progress they were making- flourishing crops, horses being tamed for travel, trade systems being implemented between the communities, building projects being completed. If all of what Rick was telling him was true- and Rick didn’t strike him as someone who would lie about such things- what they were accomplishing on the outside was impressive. It was, as Rick was forever saying to him, a new beginning. Everyone coming together for the common good. At the very least, it was keeping everyone well-fed, because neither Rick nor his stand-in delivery people had that gaunt, hungry look anymore. Even Negan, the fucking prisoner, was fed three square meals a day. After so much time spent going hungry and scrimping and scraping for food, it was a sign of the tide changing in their favor.

But still, Rick looked exhausted. Exhausted enough that he was easy to pick at, his weak spots unguarded.

“You may have bribed some of my people over to your side, but don’t fucking kid yourself, Rick. My soldiers, the ones who lived like kings? They’re never gonna fall in line for you. You think they’re gonna want to work for you just to earn a bowl of soup? These guys used to have their own little armies, and now they’re just another cog in your machine.”

Really, what he meant was that the guys that got off on the little scraps of power Negan had thrown him weren’t going to fall in line. The guys who’d enjoyed grinding people into the dirt and thought that maybe, one day, if they were strong and loyal and downright _ruthless_ enough, they’d be the next Negan. They weren’t the best mankind had to offer, but they were willful and they got shit done, so Negan had kept them around. And judging by Rick’s near-imperceptible flinch, he was right- they were giving Rick’s new world some trouble.

“You think you’re doing everyone a service by keepin’ me locked up? _Fuck_ , Rick, are you really as stupid as your hillbilly accent makes you sound? Don’t think I didn’t hear the widow screamin’ at you after you made the call to let me live. I bet she doesn’t come around here anymore, does she? Yeah, that’s what I thought. But that doesn’t matter to you, does it? Not enough to kill me. No, because we both know why I’m _really_ down here. It’s not so you can restore order to the goddamn shithole of a world we live in. It’s not because of Carl. It’s because it makes you feel good about yourself. Righteous Rick Grimes, who spared his mortal enemy out of the goodness of his heart! Let’s all lick his fucking ratty boots and kiss his perky ass. What a load of fucking horseshit.”

Really, he knew that _everything_ Rick did now was for Carl, but it was fun to push his buttons anyway. And given how he grit his teeth at the mention of the widow, he’d been spot-on about her, too.

Carl, though- that was the obvious chink in Rick’s armor. He didn’t like to pull it out often, because he knew it was a low blow. That was his _kid_ , after all- his little one-eyed, badass fourteen year old that would never turn fifteen. It felt cheap to hit Rick there, and even worse, it almost made Negan feel guilty afterward. The rest of it was fair game- it was what they’d gone to war over. Nothing personal, not really. But Carl? Negan only brought Carl up when he was angry and needed to lash out, to see Rick gutted and bleeding out on the concrete floor.

He always regretted it after the fact, when Rick left him with his back rigid as a steel rod and unshed tears glistening in his pretty blue eyes. It was in those moments, when he ripped into Rick and tore and tore at a wound that would never heal, that he truly understood why he deserved to be in that godforsaken cell. He was _cruel_ , cruel in a way that Rick would never be. He’d been a cruel leader, and now he was a bitter, angry prisoner, lashing out at the only person who showed him any kindness at all.

And that was the crux of it, really, the thing that really stuck in Negan’s craw. Despite it all, despite Negan subjugating him and humiliating him and gleefully killing his friends, making him live in terror and now using his words to rip into him whenever he could, Rick still showed him kindness. _Mercy_. He brought Negan clean clothes and blankets, brought him books if he wanted them. He made sure he never went without food and was tended to when he was sick, and he gave him company. He stayed to talk to him despite Negan’s cruelty. He could just have easily had someone else deliver his meals. Let him stew in silent solitude for months on end. Compared to how Negan had treated his own prisoners, it still would have been merciful.

But Rick was better than that. A better man than him. And _fuck_ , did that piss him off. It was that unbearable kindness in a hardened survivor and leader that made Negan crave Rick’s company. It was what had drawn him to the man in the first place, ever since the night they’d met. Big, teary blue eyes that wept for the mere two men he’d lost. He felt everything, was so _soft_ in that way, and Negan didn’t understand it. Weakness in this world got you killed, but here Rick was anyway, heart on his sleeve in spite of it all.

He was fascinating. He was _beautiful_. And every day that he woke, Negan sat in his cell hoping that he’d hear Rick’s boots shuffling down to greet him.

* * *

“Gregory’s dead. Maggie- he tried to kill her. Hurt Enid in the process, could have hurt the baby…I think that’s what really did it, if I’m honest. I can’t even blame her for it. It’s a parent’s instinct to protect. It’s been a long time since we’ve killed one of our own, but Gregory- well, you knew him. He never changed, never even tried. I’ve seen that man given more chances than he deserved. There wasn’t any part of him that cared about the people he led when he was in charge. Power. That’s always what it was for him. He could have lived a good life at the Hilltop if he’d tried even a little bit. I know she didn’t want to do what she did. I know that. I wish she didn’t have to, but I know those are the kind of shitty calls you have to make when you’re in charge.”

“You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, Ricky-boy?”

Rick’s eyes snapped to Negan’s, surprised to hear the gruff, unused rumble of the older man’s voice from out of the shadowed depths of his cell. It was odd- these days, Rick was the one who did most of the talking between them, a far cry from how things had been without bars between them. For the first month, Negan had barely spoken and Rick had feared that his vocal cords had been damaged. It was only when he’d said as much and gone to fetch Siddiq that Negan had barked out in a voice coarse as sandpaper, “You ever think maybe I just don’t want to fucking talk to _you_?”

He’d gotten better since then, occasionally holding his own in their conversations when Rick came to visit for more than a few minutes. Foolishly, Rick had once thought Negan’s newfound quietude was a mark of his diminishing pride. As time went on, he began to see that wasn’t the case.

Negan’s dark eyes glittered back at him, the flickering light of Rick’s lantern making his eyes dance like the flames of hell. Rick nodded slowly, not trusting it whenever the man spoke. “I do. And I’m sure you remember, too.”

Negan ignored the prompting, having finally found his words. “How’s it goin’ out there, by the way? You realizing just how shitty it is to try to get everybody to hold hands and sing Kumbaya?”

Rick thought of Maggie’s refusal to send food to the Saviors without receiving something immediately in return. Of Daryl’s admission that he no longer wanted to lead the Saviors and subsequent insistence that he wasn’t coming home to Alexandria, but going to the Hilltop. He thought of the writing scrawled on the wall of the Sanctuary, crude but powerful: _We are still Negan._

Like everything else, he tamped it down, grinding the flames of panic into the dust with the hell of his boot in hopes that they wouldn’t spread. Like hell would he give _Negan_ of all people the satisfaction of knowing just how weary he was. Sometimes, he swore that the man knew anyway.

“Everyone’s working together to lead us forward. It’s not just me. Ezekiel, Maggie, Michonne, Carol…they’re all coming together to join these communities in a way you never tried to. We’re _building_ something, Negan. Something bigger than any one of us.”

“What happened to that fuckin’ mutt of yours that you had at the Sanctuary?” Perceptive, Negan zeroed in on the name Rick had left out. “Where’s he run off to? You have him fetchin’ your fuckin’ newspaper?”

“ _Daryl_ ,” Rick snapped, cutting Negan’s degrading tirade off at the head, “is just fine. Carol offered to take over his duties while he heads up a team of people to rebuild the bridge between the Hilltop and the Sanctuary. It’s a little thing called teamwork, but I wouldn’t suspect you know anything about that.”

He tried to keep his voice even, but it was too late- Negan already smelled blood in the water. “That fuckin’ right? I knew that mongrel wasn’t leadership material. I should have made you bet me. A piece of chocolate if he cracks under the pressure. I could have gotten something out of this shit, because the second you told me that’s who stepped up there? I _knew_ that shit was gonna go sideways. You can’t teach and old dog new fuckin-”

“That’s _enough_ ,” Rick growled. “If you’re goin’ to be like this, I think it’s time we called it a night.” He rose from his chair and strode forward to collect the empty tray from Negan’s dinner. He reached for it on the floor right next to the cell where Negan could reach it, and then the larger man was in front of him startlingly fast, one hand snaking out to roughly snag the collar of Rick’s shirt. Rick’s breath stuttered in his chest, fear and adrenaline pumping through his veins along with something unfamiliar and strange. Negan rarely ever got so close anymore. Looking into those flashing amber eyes, Rick was reminded of lions at the zoo- all of that predatory instinct kept captive and just waiting to break out.

Negan was close enough that Rick could smell the apples still tart and fresh on his breath, could see the wicked gleam in the man’s eyes. For a long, aching moment, all Negan did was hold him there, both of them frozen by the audacity of it. If Negan had done this to anyone else, he’d probably have a broken wrist. And that was the crux of it, wasn’t it? He knew that Rick, patient and desperate to believe he’d made the right choice, wasn’t going to brutalize him.

Still- Rick didn’t understand why he felt rooted to the spot, unable to pull away from Negan’s intense gaze. On one knee, his fingers still hovering at the edge of the tray, he felt, for the first time in over a year, just like he had when Negan used to corner him in the pantry on pickup days: dominated, stripped, _seen_.

He wasn’t sure what the man planned to do- shake him or scratch at his eyes, get his licks in where he could. But then Negan’s knuckles slowly, deliberately brushed against Rick’s bare skin where his shirt hung open, below his collarbone where sparse hair began to grow, and Rick’s eyes widened, shocked at the touch, the audacity of it. His breath caught in his chest and Negan smirked. The knuckles drew up to Rick’s neck, and then one finger flicked out to press lightly at the hollow at the base of his throat. All at once Rick’s senses snapped back into him and he jerked roughly away, his breath coming in short, shocked pants. He felt buttons pop and skitter across the concrete floor, felt the cool air grace his heaving chest. Negan was still smirking as he rose to his feet and kicked his tray out to Rick. _Here you go_ , his face seemed to say _, take it and run back home now._

Rick snatched it up and forced himself not to run up the steps, his heart pounding in his throat.

* * *

Every day, it seemed like the world wanted to rub one thing firmly in Rick’s face: his loneliness.

It wasn’t that he didn’t have people that cared about him. It wasn’t even that he spent much time in solitude. On the contrary, he often found himself overwhelmed by the attention he now received from people- people that, for some reason he couldn’t comprehend, considered him a _hero_. No matter how many times he ducked his head and waved it off and insisted that the war had been an equal effort on everyone’s part, people still spoke of him reverently, shook his hand with awe in their eyes. It bordered on uncomfortable, enough so that he’d cut his long locks and began growing out his silvery heard in hopes of walking around with a little more anonymity.

No, it was those small, intimate moments between himself and a partner that he longed for. The last person he’d had any sort of connection with had been Jessie, and even then they’d shared barely more than some words and a kiss. Before her, it had been Lori…and even after so long, Rick still ached thinking about her.

Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if everyone around him wasn’t pairing off. Carol and Ezekiel, Rosita and Tara…and somehow, the hardest blow was when Rick had gone to visit Michonne and arrived at her home to find her and Anne kissing slowly on the couch, a half-finished portrait of Michonne propped up on Anne’s easel.

It was ridiculous to be jealous and he knew it. Michonne was his best friend, and Anne, for all of her questionable history, was integrating nicely into the community. But they were the only ones who had ever shown a remote interest in him, and even though he’d been unsure of how to take their flirtation with him, he’d selfishly hoped that maybe one day down the line he’d work up the courage to take things further.

But there was nobody warming his bed at night, and he was finally in a place where he could really _feel_ that empty gap for the first time. It was like missing a tooth and still sticking his tongue into the empty socket even though it felt foreign and wrong. There were times that he felt ridiculous, pathetic- the end of the damn world, and even now he couldn’t navigate sex and romance any better than his high school self. When he had a moment alone to really contemplate his body’s wants and desires, it always ended with him spilling in his own hand or over the shower tiles as water pooled around his feet.

Sometimes Negan would taunt him. It was to be expected- the man had an aggravating habit of knowing right where the chinks in Rick’s armor were, and his words were well-aimed knives.

_You won this fuckin’ war for your people and you still can’t get laid? Goddamn, Rick, and here I was feelin’ bad for myself. At least I know the only reason I’m no longer neck-deep in ass is because of you and your merry piss brigade._

Today was no different.

“Bet you’ve offered it up to just about everyone at this point, haven’t you? Sniffin’ around like a dog beggin’ for scraps. You proposition Doctor Smarty-Pants yet? You offer to stroke his mullet?” Negan sneered, looking Rick up and down in that handsy way he had. “Nah, I bet you’re hot for the doctor, ain’t you? A pretty face and so, so eager to please-”

“You ever get tired of runnin’ your damn mouth like this?” Rick interrupted. The jabs against himself were one thing, but he didn’t want to hear Negan start dragging Siddiq or Eugene or anyone else into this.

Negan clucked his tongue. “ _Rick_. You should know the answer to that by now, darlin’.”

He did.

Rick just wanted to collect Negan’s tray and go home. Read Judith a bedtime story before tucking her in, maybe have a drink to lull him into his own restless slumber. Negan always got mouthier at night, he’d noticed.

“C’mon, Rick, you can lay your burdens on me. Who the fuck am I gonna tell?” Negan stretched out languidly on his bed, making no attempt to reach for the offered sandwich. In the dark of the room, Rick could only catch glints of his features, the shadows making them look more angular and severe. “It gets hard, don’t it? Being on your own for so goddamn long. Starts makin’ you a little stir-crazy. And the _dreams_ \- hoo, shit, the dreams get fuckin’ _weird_. Kinks you didn’t even know you had. You had any of those dreams lately, Rick? Anything you wanna share with the class? You put on the good little southern boy act, but I bet you’re a fucking wildcat in the sheets, aren’t you?”

Rick swallowed hard and nudged the tray with the toe of his boot. “I’ll be back in an hour. I want that gone.”

“The tiniest things start to rile you up,” Negan continued like Rick hadn’t spoken. “Friends pattin’ you on the back, touching your arm. You start reading too much into things. Wonderin’ if that cute chick from next door was _really_ eyeing you up or if it’s all in your head.”

Rick breathed out through his nose, determined not to let Negan see how his words were getting to him. Unbidden, memories cropped up- how he’d shivered when Siddiq had run his hands over him to check on his bruised ribs; how he’d caught himself staring at Rosita whenever she wore one particular pair of clingy gray pants; how he’d blushed like a schoolboy with a crush when Michonne’s eyes lingered on his. It made him feel so _guilty_ every time it happened, guilty and sad and desperate with longing. He fixed his eyes on his boots.

“Get turned on _real_ easy, don’t you?” Negan’s voice was all-consuming, echoing in Rick’s ears and keeping him rooted to the spot. “Barely takes anything. You go home and touch yourself, and it’s not enough. It’s never fucking _enough_.” Rick’s eyes fluttered closed. He should have left- he should have walked right out the door, but he didn’t, and now he felt like he was slowly unraveling as Negan picked him apart. “Don’t even bother to drop your jeans, just unzip and shove your hand down them. Jerk yourself off hard and fast because you just want it to be over. Because you know that it’s not gonna be enough, but you need it anyway.”

How many mornings had Rick done exactly that? How many nights had he come in his own hand just so he could get some rest?

“I can help you.”

Cold fingertips brushed against Rick’s wrist and he startled back into reality. Negan was right in front of him, close enough to reach out between the bars. He didn’t pull away, continuing to rub the pads of his fingers over Rick’s wrist.

_I should step back_ , Rick thought. _I should leave like I said I would._

Negan’s fingers warmed as he continued to touch him, and Rick’s skin burned like the man was made of flame.

“You need it. I need it. Nobody has to know.”

He couldn’t make sense of what Negan was offering. Everything was muted in comparison to the warmth of another person touching him.

“Say yes.”

The fingers disappeared from Rick’s wrist, and the fog he was in nearly lifted, but then there was gentle pressure between his thighs and he made a sound like he’d been kicked in the gut as Negan cupped him through his pants.

He was hard, undone just by Negan’s filthy words. He hadn’t realized it, but the proof sat cradled in Negan’s palm. Sweat trickled down Rick’s neck and soaked into his collar. His knees felt ready to give out beneath him, and he was sure that he was going to need to grab onto the bars just to hold himself up.

Negan squeezed him, just once, and Rick yelped before he could think better of it. Their eyes locked, dark on light, and for a second, Rick was sure he was dreaming. There was a question on Negan’s face, and he held still as he waited for the answer.

Rick couldn’t- he _couldn’t_.

He ran.

He only made it as far as the back of the row of houses where Negan’s cell was. One hand on the brick, one hand unbuckling his belt in the dark.

_Don’t even bother to drop your jeans, just unzip and shove your hand down them._

He closed a fist around his stiff, aching cock, already wet and slick.

_Jerk yourself off hard and fast because you just want it to be over._

He let out a near-sob when he came, soaking through the front of his pants. His legs did give out then, knees sinking into the dirt. Relief didn’t come, only shame and confusion and frustrated tears that needled at the corners of his eyes.

_You know that it’s not gonna be enough._


	2. The Bridge

It felt like being back at the farm all over again- all of the bad parts. The leadership he’d never asked for, but had stepped into because he saw the need. The constant questioning at every turn. Every move he made was wrong, every decision picked apart. The helpless feeling of drowning beneath expectations that nobody would let him live up to.

People looked to Rick to make decisions, so he made them. He made the decision to include the former Saviors in the new world, because when hadn’t he given people second chances before? Tara had been on the Governor’s side once, and so had Sasha and Tyreese. Jadis and Gabriel had stabbed him in the back on multiple occasions, and now they were valuable members of the group, people he loved and cared for. When Nicholas had gotten Noah killed, he’d seen that same mercy in Glenn. Even Shane had gotten second chances right up until the end when Rick knew that it had to be one of them that died on that horrible night. The list went on and on. People could change- Rick had seen it enough times to know it to be true.

There were always going to be uphill climbs. He’d known that from the start. He just hadn’t expected that the most resistance would come from the people he trusted the most. When Daryl had first stepped up and offered to be the one to lead the Sanctuary in Negan’s absence, he’d been surprised, given his friend’s history there. He’d offered alternatives- Tara and Rosita had already been working to rebuild things there, Eugene was familiar with the place and had begun to come into his own. There were former Saviors like Alden that had been on their side since the war- Daryl didn’t have to go. But he insisted- he _wanted_ to, he’d said, and Rick had been proud. Daryl, for all his years of being a loner, was stepping up to lead.

Now, Rick thought that maybe he’d offered because he didn’t want the Saviors taken care of.

The only victory he had so far was the bridge construction coming along nicely. They were only a week in, but they’d been making good headway and the Saviors were, for the most part, pulling their share of the weight. It was hard work, and Rick’s days were split between overseeing the plans and doing physical labor, felling trees and rigging up pulleys and levers with Eugene’s help. He was always beat by the end of the day, dead on his feet by the time he got back home and tucked Judith into bed, but it felt good. It was a distraction.

He hadn’t been to see Negan since construction started. He wasn’t _avoiding_ him, he reasoned- he just didn’t have the time or energy. Let someone else give the man his meals for a while.

* * *

It was gone midnight when they finally packed it in for the day. It had been a productive day setting the framework for the fence, and nobody had wanted to call it quits until they’d reached the other side. Now, standing proudly from one side of the river to the other, there were beams laid. If someone was particularly well-balanced, they could have walked it like a tightrope all the way from one shore to the other.

Even though his whole body ached, Rick felt lighter than he had in months as he walked back to camp among the other workers. For once, seeing Carol and Ezekiel walking in regal tandem and watching Rosita slide a hand into Tara’s back pocket didn’t make him ache with jealousy- he just felt satisfied. He reeked of sweat and dirt and sawdust, but so did everyone else, and nobody cared.

“You staying for the bonfire tonight, jefe?” Jerry asked as he strode up by Rick’s side.

Rick nodded, pointedly ignoring the playful nickname. “Yeah. Too late to head out. Judith’ll be asleep by now anyway.” He felt bad that he hadn’t been there to read her a bedtime story and tuck her in, but he knew he’d be back tomorrow. He’d take a day sometime in the next week to stay home, check on the crops and have a family fun day with her.

“Sweet! You should tell some more cop stories. I loved the one with the guy that tried to catch his neighbor’s chickens.”

Rick chuckled. “Plenty more where that came from. Small towns like that, people get bored and do some dumb shit.”

When they got back to camp, Rick took a few minutes to duck into his tent and splash water on his face and neck and strip out of his filthy, damp clothes in favor of something clean and comfortable. By the time he stuck his head out, Tara and Aaron had already lit a crackling fire in the stone-lined pit in the middle of camp. People were huddling around it, but Rick noticed with a leap of joy that they were also intermingling, people from Alexandria and the Kingdom and the Hilltop all gathering together and laughing, swapping stories and sharing food.

Rick took a seat on a log beside Carol, and the woman smiled when he did, her eyes kinder and softer than Rick had ever seen. Finally, after all her heartbreak and pain, she’d found some peace, and he couldn’t have been happier for her.

“Glad to see you sticking around, sunshine,” she greeted him. “I know it’s hard to leave Judith. Especially when she’s so young.” She offered him a hearty slice of fire-toasted bread slathered with strawberry preserves, and he groaned when the flavor spread over his tongue.

“I’ll have to promise her a family fun day to make up for it. I’ve been meanin’ to take a day to stay back home and check on things, but it’s hard to leave here too, you know? Feels irresponsible since I was the one who insisted on the bridge.”

“You were right to insist. It was a good idea. We needed a way to cross here, and you’re making it happen.” Carol reached over to squeeze his knee affectionately. “One day Judith will hear stories about all the good her dad’s done for people.”

Rick felt his cheeks grow warm and hoped that the glow of the fire masked it. “She’ll hear about everything _we_ did. All of us, together.”

“Speaking of together,” Tara chimed in, planting herself beside Rick, “you know what I want more than anything? Some marshmallows and chocolate _together_ with some damn graham crackers. Being out here reminds me of all the camping trips I took in Girl Scouts.”

Rick made a noise of agreement. He, Lori, and Carl had gone on a lot of camping trips as a family. Shane would come along sometimes, too, often with his girlfriend-of-the-week in tow. Nights like this evoked memories of those simpler, cozier times. “It’s been forever since I’ve had a s’more. Never thought I’d miss marshmallows.”

Carol elbowed Rick playfully. “If you can figure out how to make a pizza, I’m sure we can work out some marshmallows, too.”

“I still can’t believe that came out alright.” Rick had been determined to make a pizza ever since Carl had mentioned it in his parting letter. A few weeks ago, with Carol’s help, he’d managed to pull it off and they’d enjoyed their first pizza night in Alexandria.

From there, the conversation devolved into lamentations of their favorite foods from a bygone world. Rick and the others were listening to a winding tale about the time Jerry and Ezekiel had come across a stash of frozen peanut butter cups in an ice cream shop when Rick caught sight of Daryl ducking into the trees, crossbow slung over his shoulder. Rick frowned as he watched his friend’s shadowed form slip away from the group, and he excused himself quietly to follow the other man’s trail. He’d only just stepped out of sight when Daryl turned to him , one hand on the knife on his belt.

“It’s just me,” Rick murmured, and Daryl’s hand fell away. “You not enjoyin’ the conversation?”

Daryl grunted and shook a long strand of hair out of his eyes. “Just goin’ for a hunt. Won’t be long.”

“You need another pair of eyes?” Rick offered. Even as quick-footed and at home among the trees as Daryl was, Rick didn’t like the thought of him out there alone so late at night. “I’ll even carry your squirrels.” He smiled in the dark and waited for his friend to roll his eyes at the teasing, but Daryl’s face remained closed off.

“Nah. Not goin’ far.” He turned to leave, and Rick felt a knot of worry tangle in his stomach.  He took a step toward Daryl and caught his wrist.

“Somethin’ wrong? I just wanna make sure you’re alright out there. It’s late.”

Daryl scoffed. “Ain’t a kid.”

“Never said you were. But it never hurts to have backup.”

“I do fine on my own.” Daryl shook him off and hiked his crossbow up higher. “Didn’t expect me to stick around just because you actually stayed here tonight, did you?”

Rick’s brow furrowed. “The hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“Means what it means, man. For the big man in charge, you’re sure quick to get outta here every night.”

“Because I want to get home to _Judith_.” Rick was hurt that it even needed to be said. “I’m gonna be away nearly every day until this is done. And there’s things in Alexandria I gotta take care of.”

“Like Negan?”

Rick reared back a little, guilty conscience collaring him for a single horrifying moment before he convinced himself there was no way that Daryl knew about what had happened between himself and Negan the last time he’d visited the man’s cell. He shook the thought off. “Like the crops. Like makin’ sure that nobody needs Siddiq or Enid to come home. Like workin’ on the windmill.” _All the things you’d know about if you bothered to come home once and a while_ , Rick thought bitterly.

“Got a lot on your plate,” Daryl said, but his tone made Rick’s stomach twist. _Confrontational_.

“I’m tryin’ my best to split my time. I’m sorry I haven’t been here much. It’s not that I don’t wanna be. We’re spread out all over now. That’s part of the reason gettin’ this bridge built is important.”

“Whatever you say, Rick.” Daryl turned away again. “Won’t be long. I’ll holler if I need someone.” Rick watched as he disappeared into the underbrush, stealthy as a cat. The tangle of worry in his chest hadn’t loosened a bit- it never seemed to these days when it came to Daryl. Every time he spoke to his friend, their conversations seemed tense and strained, the weight of Daryl’s dissent hanging heavy over them.

Rick sighed and then turned back to the camp, trying to tend to the lonely ache in his chest by crowding close with the people he called his family.

* * *

The next day was another long one, and Rick went home with the last watch that evening. He felt confident leaving the construction in Carol and Daryl’s capable hands for a day so he could tend to affairs in Alexandria.

Judith had already been tucked into her bed, so Rick made a beeline for the shower, sighing in relieved pleasure as the hot water massaged the tension out of his aching muscles and rinsed away the sweat and grime from the last couple days. He felt like a new- if exhausted- man when he finally stepped out, and it was mere moments after his head hit the pillow that he was fast asleep.

* * *

“Daddy!”

Rick woke to the feeling of warm, tiny hands patting his cheek. He breathed out a sleepy laugh and cracked one eye playfully at Judith, who giggled and poked at his cheek one last time. “I painted a picture for you while you were away,” she boasted, up on tiptoe to try to squirm up onto the bed with him. Rick smoothed a hand over her unruly curls and cracked a smile.

“A picture? That right?”

The young girl nodded vigorously. “Yeah! With the paint from Annie.”

Rick huffed a laugh- it was always funny to hear Judith call Anne _Annie_. He was sure that if anyone else called the eccentric artist that, she’d death-glare them into submission. “You wanna go grab it to show to me?”

Judith wrapped bother of her hands around his wrist and tugged gently. “Momma pinned it up on the wall! Come see!”

Rick was thankful that Judith had already turned away and was waving him out the door so that she missed the twinge of pain that crossed his features. Michonne had been _momma_ from the time Judith could speak, and it filled Rick with a bittersweet ache- bitter because Judith would never know her real mother, would never be raised by parents that loved and lived with each other in that way, and sweet because Rick could never be grateful enough for Michonne’s bond with his daughter, even if his relationship with her had never moved beyond friendship.

“Daddy!” Judith called from the top of the stairs, and Rick grunted as he forced his aching body to rise from the plush warmth of his bed.

“I’m comin’, Jude.” He made his way stiffly down the stairs after her pattering footsteps, rubbing his eyes at the early morning light streaming into the kitchen windows. Judith rocked proudly on her heels and gestured up at the painting that hung proudly on the wall. Rick swept his daughter into his arms, ignoring the ache in the shoulders as he did. “It’s just beautiful, sweetheart. You wanna tell me about it?”

“It’s all of us! There’s me and you , and momma, and aunt Maggie, and all our friends.” She pointed out each person individually, and Rick’s heart swelled in his chest. “The heart dripped a little on momma, but she said it’s ‘cause it’s full of love.”

“Momma’s right,” Rick managed, his throat thick. Michonne had hung the painting next to the one Judith had painted of herself and Carl months ago. _Family portraits_. Rick had commissioned Anne to paint Carl and Lori a while back, and those hung privately in his bedroom. He treasured them dearly, especially since he didn’t have any photos of Lori anymore. But Judith’s simple, messy painting made his eyes tear up in a whole new way. He reached out and pointed to the figure he guessed to be himself. “What’s that grumpy face?”

Judith grinned at him. “You’ve got a grumpy little face.”

“I have a happy face,” he protested with a laugh.

“And that’s your big tummy,” Judith continued, and Rick nearly folded in half with laughter.

“That’s daddy’s big tummy?”

“Yeah. It’s ‘cause you’re strong!”

Rick chuckled and bounced Judith over to his other hip as he made his way toward the fridge. “I love it, Jude.” He placed her in a seat at the table and began rifling through cupboards until he found some oats. “You want strawberries or apples?”

“Berries!” Judith cried as Rick mixed up a batch of oatmeal over the stove. Enough for three. “Can we have juice?”

Rick nodded to the glass of milk he’d just set before her on the table. “Finish that up first. Makes you big and strong.”

“Like you and momma?”

Rick smiled to himself. “Just like me and momma.”

* * *

Rick had to step out after breakfast to check on a few things that Judith couldn’t tag along for, but he promised her that he’d be back soon and that they’d spend the day playing hide-and-seek and painting. If he was wise, he wouldn’t have put off delivering Negan’s breakfast until last, but in the end, he found himself shuffling his feet, bowl of oatmeal and strawberries in hand as he lingered outside the man’s doorway.

_You could ask someone else to do it. You’re making the choice to go in there again._

_The longer you wait, the harder it’s gonna be. Just rip off the band-aid._

Rick steeled himself with a deep breath and stepped inside.

The cell was always better-lit in the mornings, which made everything harder. Having to look Negan in the eye after what had happened that last time…the thought made Rick’s chest tighten and his palms sweat, but he knew he’d have to come back to see him one day. And the last thing he wanted was for Negan to think he was _afraid_.

Negan looked to still be asleep, blanket draped over his lanky form and his face to the wall. Rick nearly considered setting the bowl on the floor and taking his leave, but before he could talk himself into it, Negan stirred and rolled over. He looked surprised to see Rick, his usual mask of indifference and smugness slipping for a moment when he saw who was standing outside his bars. Awkwardly, Rick held out the bowl before placing it within arm’s reach outside the cell. “Mornin’.”

“Rick,” Negan rasped, his usually-gravelly voice even thicker with sleep, deep enough to rumble in Rick’s bones. Negan’s gaze fell to the floor as he sat up. Something was off about him- he dodged Rick’s eyes when he reached for his food, as if he was the one with something to be ashamed of. “Thank you,” he muttered, so quiet that Rick nearly missed it. As it was, he was so shocked by the gratitude that he was struck dumb where he stood. “You haven’t been here in a while,” Negan noted after a few spoonfuls. Rick found himself trying to catch the man’s eyes even though he was sure he’d want to look away as soon as he did.

“Yeah. Started workin’ on a bridge over the river between the Sanctuary and the Kingdom. Should cut our travel time down pretty well once it’s done. It was the strangest thing, and a testament to how thoroughly Negan could get into his head, the way Rick suddenly needed Negan to look at him. It was so unlike the other man to keep his head down. For all of Rick’s grievances about Negan’s arrogance, the look didn’t suit him. “You- they took care of you while I was gone, didn’t they? You were fed?” He had a sudden, panicky vision of Negan waiting and waiting on food that never came for days on end. Rick never wanted to be the cruel warden that he’d herd Negan and Dwight had been.

“They fed me just fine, Saint Rick. Don’t have a fuckin’ cow.” There was a hint of bitterness in Negan’s voice that Rick didn’t understand. Was he pissed that Rick had been away for so long? He knew that nobody else here spent more than a couple of minutes dropping off food. He was likely upset that he’d had nobody to talk to in over a week.

“Somethin’ wrong with breakfast?”

Negan frowned down at his oatmeal. The silence ticked by, Rick’s pulse keeping time with the second hand on his watch. When Negan finally spoke again, his tone was subdued in an odd, unfamiliar way. “I was sure you weren’t comin’ back.”

Rick traced the pattern of the bricks with his eyes over and over again. “It wasn’t like that. Just been away from home is all.”

Negan snorted derisively and Rick’s mouth twitched into a frown. “That all?”

“I’ve barely had time to see Judith this past week, Negan. I ain’t hidin’ from you.”

Rick expected a fight- some sharp-tongued back-and-forth that would leave him frustrated and moody. What he got was a slump in Negan’s shoulders and a weary voice. “Wouldn’t blame you if you were.”

Rick’s hackles raised, and he was about to snap that Negan was overestimating his importance, but Negan spoke first, cutting him off.

“What I did- fuck Rick, I’m…I fucked up.” Rick blinked hard. “I got caught up. It’s not an excuse, but I just- I fucking need you to know that it won’t happen again. I’m- I’m sorry.”

Rick couldn’t have been more surprised if Negan had told him that he’d spent the last week with his nose tucked into the Bible that Gabriel had left him. The only time Negan had ever apologized to him was after Carl died, and even then, the apology was only an offering of condolences before the man turned it around to further gut him. He waited for the rug to be ripped out from beneath him, but it never came.

“Just like you to come down here after that to fucking _check_ on me. Make sure I’m gettin’ fed like the papa bear you are.” Negan pushed the strawberries around in his bowl. “Saint fucking Rick. It used to piss me off so fuckin’ bad when I’d hear people goin’ on and on about how _good_ you are.” Rick felt like he needed to sit or else the world would spin out from under him. What the hell was this? “Guess that sweet-as-pie southern shit really does run bone-deep with you, huh? And here I was thinkin’ that you just put on a good show.”

“What?” Rick blurted, utterly lost. He couldn’t make sense of this new game Negan was playing. The older man’s eyes cut up to his, and to Rick’s shock, there was genuine guilt in their depths.

“I shouldn’t have touched you like that. When I…” Rick’s cheeks burned at the memory of Negan’s hand on him- the first person to touch him intimately in years. “I never asked.”

If the words had come as a shock, that was nothing compared to the revelation that Negan _meant_ them.

“That- that wasn’t why I stayed away,” Rick insisted, because it was true- at least in the way that Negan was thinking. _If you’d grabbed me like that and I hadn’t wanted it, I would have broken your damn wrist. Would have snapped your fingers over the bars and come back the next morning like nothing happened. Me not wanting it wasn’t the problem._

“Rick, I-”

“I mean it. Don’t go wallowin’ in guilt over somethin’ I ain’t bothered by. It’s a waste of your time- and that’s sayin’ something.”

Negan blinked at him over and over as Rick’s words sank in. Rick felt like he was being searched with those omniscient hazel eyes, and he had to make an effort to not cringe away. He cleared his throat and nodded toward the bowl Negan still held. “I’ll be back for that in a half hour. Don’t waste the strawberries. Judith picked ‘em.”

* * *

Negan was quiet when Rick came to retrieve his dutifully empty bowl. _Fine by me_ , Rick thought- he wanted a day off, and he hardly wanted to spend it recounting his last encounter with Negan.

Judith was ready and raring to go when he returned, her boots donned with a woven basket clutched in her hands. Rick beamed down at her and switched out Negan’s bowl for the mp3 player lying on the kitchen table. “You ready to go?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yeah!” Judith was waiting impatiently in the open doorway, her face expectant. Rick smiled and strode over to take her free hand, and together they made their way down the front steps and toward the gardens.

Back at the prison, it had been like pulling teeth trying to get Carl to help him with the farming, though Rick knew it was mostly because Carl had been itching to get his hands on a weapon again so he could help protect the place. Judith, on the other hand, had never laid hands on a gun or knife, and as such was more than happy to help her father gather the ripe tomatoes and pull weeds.

These days, there was scarcely anything Rick loved more.

It was a good day- sunny and warm with clouds keeping the beams from being too hot and bright. It was early enough that there weren’t many people out yet, a fact that Rick was thankful for. Judith darted carefully between the lines of crops to get to the tomatoes, plopping the basket down in the dirt beside her. She watched as her father drew the music player out of his pocket and immediately reached for the headphone her offered her. “Can we listen to mama?”

Rick’s heart jolted painfully, his smile slipping just for a moment. He knelt down beside Judith, one hand smoothing down her blonde curls. He often forgot just how little Judith knew about Lori, and the reminder was never a pleasant one. “You know it’s not your mama, Jude-” he began, and Judith nodded quickly, seeming to sense that her misstep had chased away her father’s smile.

“I know. But it’s her favorite, right?”

Rick swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, it was her favorite.”

They were serenaded by the cheerful sounds of Fleetwood Mac as they carefully picked out the reddest, ripest tomatoes and the fullest green bean pods. By the time the basket was overflowing, they’d rounded the full album and moved on to Boston, which had Rick softly humming along.

“I think we just about got ‘em all, Jude. How about we go give all this to Jenny, yeah?” The rest of the tomatoes were faded shades of green and red, still at least a week away from full ripeness. Judith nodded enthusiastically and let Rick untangle the headphones from her hair before tucking the player back into his pocket. He reached down to heft up the basket only to be batted away by his daughter.

“I can do it!” she insisted with a pout. Rick had to bite his lip to stop from chuckling and held his hands up in surrender, watching with amuse as the young girl grabbed the wicker handle with both hands and tried to heft it up herself.

He caught it before she could spill all of the vegetables into the dirt, but only just. “I think this thing weighs more than you do, sweet pea.” She allowed him to take the basket then, but the dejected look on her face gave Rick an idea. “How about this, though- you hold onto the side for me and make sure nothin’ spills, alright?”

Judith’s eyes brightened immediately, and she instantly reached for the side of the basket to steady it by her father’s side. “I got it.”

Rick chuckled. “I know you do. And I’ll tell you what- I bet I can find a basket that’s your size so you can help me carry next time. How’s that sound?”

“Sounds good.” She looked so determined and serious that Rick couldn’t help but smile. Between the two of them, they carried the basket to the pantry with ease, where Jenny, the woman in charge of inventory, tucked the food away where it could be canned and jarred and taken home by hungry people. Rick left with two tomatoes of his own for lunch- picked out meticulously by Judith.

Lunch turned to a round of hide and seek, which turned into tag, and by dinnertime, Rick found himself on the floor of Judith’s bedroom surrounded by a menagerie of stuffed animals, eating his supper off of a tiny plastic table. There was paint beneath his fingernails and he’d done a truly terrible drawing of his horse, Millie, that now lay drying beside Judith’s blue-and-green portrait of him, and for once, his day had brought him nothing but peace.

“You don’t paint as good as Annie,” Judith noted between bites of sandwich.

“I don’t,” Rick agreed. “I think I’m out of practice.”

“I thought grown-ups were ‘posed to draw better.”

Rick snorted with laughter. “Everybody’s got things they’re good at. Anne’s good at drawing. Michonne’s good with a sword. I’m good at growin’ things.”

“Momma plays swords with me sometimes,” Judith said. “I wanna be good like her.”

Rick planted a kiss on top of his daughter’s head. “You’re gonna be good at a whole lot of things, Jude.”

The sound of footsteps charging up the stairs interrupted them. Rick’s fingers twitched at his side, only relaxing when he saw that it was Michonne.

“Momma!” Judith cried delightedly, rushing over to the woman and hugging her tight at the knees. Michonne laughed breathlessly and gazed down at the girl with adoration.

“Hey there, baby girl.”

“Are you gonna have dinner with us? Daddy made san-wiches.”

Michonne shook her head solemnly. “Not tonight, Jude. I actually need to talk to your daddy for a minute, okay?”

Judith’s face fell, but she nodded, and Rick’s heart broke a little. _I wonder if she’s ever going to start asking questions about why she has one mother that’s gone away with her big brother and another that doesn’t live with us._

“Pick out a bedtime story, sweet pea. I’ll be right back,” Rick said to Judith, pushing to his feet. He followed Michonne into the hallway, leaving the door cracked behind him. “Somethin’ wrong?”

“Just got the relay in that there’s fighting at the bridge. Nothing serious, but it sounds like Carol could use the backup.”

Rick’s brow furrowed. “What about Daryl? He’s still there, isn’t he?”

“It sounded like Daryl was in the thick of it with one of the men from the Sanctuary- Jed?”

Rick cursed under his breath and then immediately reprimanded himself, hoping that Judith didn’t hear. With his luck, she’d start repeating it every chance she got. “It’s always the ones who used to be lieutenants, you notice that?”

Michonne nodded, her long dreads brushing her shoulders. “Makes sense- you give men like that positions of power over people, and they’re not keen to go back to following orders.”

“Yeah,” Rick sighed, his head bumping the wall behind him. “So much for family fun day.”

“I can go back if you need me to.”

Rick shook his head. “Nah. I know you just got home. I’ll go.”

Michonne smiled sympathetically at him. “Never get a day off, do you?” Rick shook his head. “I can stay here with Judith if you want.”

“I’d appreciate that. And I know she’d love you to stay.” He sighed and cast one longing glance back at his daughter through the crack in the door. “Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got the strongest headcanon that Lori adored Stevie Nicks. 
> 
> I got a little off-track with this update because the last two weeks have been crazy busy for me, but the plan going forward is to update a little more regularly than this. Thanks for reading!


	3. The Descent

“You ain’t even listenin’, man!” Daryl shouted over Rick, and Rick had to grit his teeth to keep from snapping out that Daryl had been talking over him every time he opened his mouth for the past fifteen minutes. “These people don’t _want_ to work with us. How much shit is it gonna take for you to get that?”

Rick bit his tongue and let him finish. Carol’s steady, calming presence between them helped him keep his head at least a little. “There’s people like Jed in every group,” Rick pointed out. “I seem to recall a time when your brother was that person for us. When- when Shane was.” Even now, after all this time, it was still hard to say his name. “Spencer and Nicholas were like that, too.”

“And ain’t none of those guys still with us,” Daryl pointed out.

“Merle helped us in the end,” Rick reminded him gently, always careful around the open wound that was Daryl’s brother. “He saved Michonne’s life. Glenn spared Nicholas because he saw good in him, saw someone worth redeeming.”

“Spencer ended up bein’ a weasel right up ‘til Negan gutted him in the street.” Rick winced, remembering that day- the fear and brokenness and sorrow of it all. “And we both know what happened to Shane.”

Rick flinched back like Daryl had slapped him, and he felt something hot and ugly rising in his throat, but Carol’s hand on his shoulder made him swallow it back.

“ _Enough_. There’s plenty of ugliness out there without us turning on each other.” Daryl quieted enough to let Carol speak, something Rick was grateful for but also felt a stab of jealousy toward. _When did you stop respecting me enough to let me speak?_ “I handled Jed. Regina’s going to be keeping a close eye on him. It was a silly little dispute over spilled beans. Do you really want to make this a bigger deal than it needs to be?”

Daryl scowled. “He was the one that made it into somethin’ to begin with. Didn’t need to get up in Jerry’s face like that. Didn’t need to pull a damn _knife_.”

“Jerry handled himself just fine,” Carol replied.

“He shouln’ta had to over some fuckin’ beans.”

“And I’m not disagreeing with you. But it’s over.”

Daryl shook his head and gestured out of the tent toward the others gathered out of earshot around the crackling campfires. “’S not over ‘til they’re all outta here, Carol. You’ve seen ‘em. You gotta know that.” And with that, he took his leave, shouldering out from the loose tent flaps. Rick saw the flicker of a lighter and the billowing smoke as he lit a cigarette. Carol turned back to Rick after a moment and gave a small sigh.

“Always wanna stomp on those damn things when I see him smoking them now.”

Rick sank into the seat opposite her. “I thought you smoked.”

“I gave it up.”

A knowing smile tugged at the weary corners of Rick’s lips. “For Ezekiel?”

Carol looked torn between a pleased smile and kicking the leg out from his chair. “For Henry, actually. That kid picks up bad habits like a vacuum. Gotta set a good example.” She sighed again, looking Rick up and down. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“You know what I mean. You look tired, Rick. I’m sorry we called you up here. First time you’ve had a day with Judith in weeks, and some asshole throws a fit over spilled beans.”

“I’m more worried about Daryl than Jed,” Rick confessed. “Jed…guys like him get pissy the minute they’ve got to lift a finger for themselves. He’ll either get with the program or he’ll fuck off somewhere else.”

“But Daryl?”

Rick dug the heel of his boot into the soft earth. “Daryl doesn’t trust me. I know what he thinks of all this- he hasn’t been shy about tellin’ me. And he thinks I’m blinded by...” the word stuck in his throat, thick as molasses.

“By Carl,” Carol finished for him, her pale eyes gentle and infinitely understanding.

Rick nodded mutely. “And it’s not just- just him. It started out that way, with Negan. But all of this- this has always been what we were workin’ toward. Something that feels like living again instead of just gettin’ by.”

“I know that’s why you’re doing this,” Carol assured him with a warm pat on the hand. “We all deal with grief in our own way. To say that you’re doing this for Carl is like saying I'm the way I am now because of Sophia. She's a big part of it, of course, but that’s not the only reason. Losing her...that may have started it, but there’s been hundreds more reasons for me to see things through to now.” Rick wanted to pull his friend into his arms and comfort her in some way; it was so rare that she spoke of Sophia. In the last year, Rick had heard her speak about her daughter more than usual, and it was for his sake, a shared loss and empathy between them.

Carol gave him a sympathetic smile and patted his cheek. “He’ll come around, sunshine. You know he doesn’t deal with new people too well. But he loves you just like he always has, Rick- you don’t need to worry about that.”

* * *

Rick couldn’t stay in the camp that night. The fog of discontent fell heavy, creeping in from the thick treeline and seeping into every crevice of the camp. He kept smelling cigarette smoke, sharp and sour, clinging to the air wherever he went like the ghost of Daryl’s presence.

He rode back home alone, much to Carol’s disapproval. It wasn’t wise, but he needed to clear his head, and the clean forest air along the road to Alexandria did just that.

His mind kept venturing back to the stone steps leading to down Negan’s cell, kept replaying the man’s gruff voice whispering sweet, filthy promises.

_I can help you. Nobody has to know._

Having to dispatch a couple of walkers on his ride back would have been a welcomed distraction from the thoughts dancing around his head, but the path was meticulously clear. He should have been grateful, but he wasn’t- every step he took toward Alexandria in his current headspace made him more and more terrified that he would do something rash. Something he’d regret in the morning hours when the glow of the moon and the sticky nighttime didn’t make bad decisions seem so inviting.

“I’m losin’ my mind,” Rick muttered aloud- to himself or his horse or just to give the thought some weight, he wasn’t sure. He rounded a familiar corner and saw the walls of Alexandria appear up ahead, safe and sturdy.

He felt anything but.

 _Go home_ , he told himself as he rode into town and stabled Millie with the other horses. _Go home and kiss Judith goodnight even though she’s asleep. Read a book until you can’t keep your eyes open anymore. Please, just go home._

His feet came to a stuttering stop in front of the row of tightly-packed homes where the cell was housed. He could see his own house in the distance up ahead, the light of a lantern glowing on the front porch- Michonne must have left it on for him.

_Go home._

The toe of his boot scuffed the stone steps leading down like the descent to hell. There was nothing inviting about it, no sign of life behind the glass window.

_Please just go home._

His hand found itself on the doorknob, and he was almost surprised it didn’t burn him for how much it felt like a sin.

* * *

All Negan ever did anymore was listen for footsteps, even late at night like this when he knew better than to hope for a visitor. He couldn’t count the number of nights he’d lain awake on the lumpy mattress, ear cocked in hopes of hearing those booted feet making their way to him.

Tonight, his waiting finally paid off. He had to force himself to stay in bed and not eagerly wait at the bars with bells on for Rick like a loyal hound as he watched the knob turn.

Moonlight poured in behind Rick, lighting him from behind and bathing him in a soft, pale glow that made him look unearthly. Even once the door was firmly sealed behind him, there was something otherworldly about the man tonight- something in the faraway look in his blue eyes and the pale cast to his skin where he sat in the lone shock of light.

For once, Rick said nothing. He simply sat like he’d woken up there, still half-lost in some strange dream that Negan couldn’t touch. He seemed to look right through Negan, transfixed on a spot just beside his head. 

 _He’s on the cusp of something_ , Negan realized. Breakdown, epiphany, collapse- possibly all three. The shadows beneath his eyes were like bruises, so dark and deeply etched there that he could sleep for days and they’d remain.

Strangely, Negan wanted to run his thumbs over them, see if human touch could wipe some of that weariness away.

“Something happened,” Negan ventured, because it seemed unlikely that Rick would be here if he’d truly had a day to himself like he’d planned.

“Yeah,” Rick answered, but then shook his head, “but not really. Nothin’ important. It’s just the same shit. Day after day, the same goddamned things.”

“I hear that.”

“I never asked for this,” Rick whispered thickly. “I never asked anyone to follow me.”

Every new piece of information Rick gave away was another key to understanding him, and didn’t this one just make a half dozen pieces click into place? Since that first night that he’d seen Rick on his knees, Negan had wondered how this man- this soft, teary-eyed man- had become the leader of the group that had threatened to rise against him. He hadn’t been Negan’s first guess- he wasn’t the biggest or the boldest or the most arrogant. He’d darted between looking Negan in the eye and hanging his head, and it had almost been insulting. Negan understood how cowards got into power- he’d seen it enough in the old world as well as the new. Cowards, liars, the cruel and the desperate, those were easy to deal with. But _soft_ men, men who cared too much and wore their fragile hearts on their sleeves? Those men died. They weren’t leaders, and they most certainly didn’t step to him.

But Rick did.

And _of course_ Rick had never asked for it- he’d simply stepped up when others wouldn’t. That was the kind of man he was. He led with good intentions because that was all he would ever think to do.

“Before this- nearly at the beginning, there was a farm.” Rick’s eyes were crystalline and faraway, caught up in a time and place where Negan couldn’t follow him. “And I didn’t ask to lead then, either. But I did, because nobody else would. Not in a way that was good for everyone. Even at the beginning, people had gotten hard. Callous. I didn’t want to be that way, and I didn’t want my group to be that way. So I stepped up.” Rick stared down into his open hands as if he could read the lines there. “People were willin’ to question me, to go behind my back, to be selfish, but they weren’t willing to _lead_. By the time we lost the farm, I was at the end of my rope. I- I’d had to do things I never wanted to do. And for a long time after that, I closed myself off. To my friends, to- to my wife.” Rick’s eyes fluttered shut, and his tone nearly gutted Negan where he stood, because he knew it, had heard that same guilt and self-loathing come out of his own mouth when he spoke about Lucille.

“It took a long time for me to come around again, and by the time I did, I didn’t want to lead. For the first time, I told them I wouldn’t. We were at peace, and I was happy- they didn’t need me. And that’s how I wanted it. But none of it lasted. And ever since then, it’s been the same thing over and over again- people look to me, expect me to take charge, so I do. All I ever wanted was to keep them safe, and I let that guide me.” He blew out a slow, shaky breath. “But now it feels like I’m back at the farm again. Like nothin’ I do or say if good enough, like every call I make is the wrong one in someone else’s eyes, but nobody else is willin’ to take my place. Somebody’s got to make the tough calls, and everyone wants it to be somebody else so they can have someone to blame.”

“I know what that’s like,” Negan said quietly, and Rick’s eyes flashed up to his. “It’s hard, bein’ king shit. Me, though? I asked for it. Hell, there were times that I demanded it, but that’s always been the kind of man I am. Doesn’t make you many friends, does it?”

Rick let out a broken, mournful noise that Negan felt reverberate in his chest. His shoulders slumped with the weight they carried, the burden and grief and fear. “Daryl, Maggie…people I thought would always be by my side, they just want to fight me. I can’t do right in their eyes anymore.”

And that was the root of it, the heart of the problem finally laid bare before Negan’s eyes. Rick, as always, cared too damn much about other people for his own good, and it was eating him alive. Negan had never had anyone like that around him, true trusted confidants that were like family. But that was all Rick knew to rely on, and without their support, he was crumbling. He could see the tremors of the earthquake to come already shaking in Rick’s hands and shoulders.

“You need someone else to lift that burden,” Negan observed. “Someone to force you to breathe. Must be hard, with all the weight on you. You have to carry Alexandria and everyone at the camp. Daryl fuckin’ ditched the Sanctuary because he couldn’t handle what you do, but he’s still up your ass about every goddamn thing, isn’t he?” Rick’s fingers knotted together as if he could wring the stress out of him. “Nobody ever makes you sit one out, do they? Nobody ever goes, ‘Hey, Rick, do you need a break? Glass of lemonade? A day off?’ They don’t, do they? They take for granted that you’ll always be there to blaze the trail for them. That you’ll clean up their fuckin’ messes after they come through and stomp all over your plans.”

Rick hung his head, and suddenly Negan missed those long curls and the way they’d hang so sweetly in his eyes.

“You’re so fucking _tired_ , Rick. I can see it, so why can’t they, huh? Or maybe they just don’t want to pay attention, because if they did they may have to actually _do_ something. They’d have to step up the way you always do. It’s not fucking fair, is it?”

Rick laughed bitterly, the sound echoing hollowly in the small space. “Since when has life ever been fair?”

“Your goddamn friends are supposed to make it fair for you. They’re not supposed to make shit _worse_.”

“They got their own problems to deal with. They don’t need mine, too.” Rick’s eyes flashed dangerously, and Negan knew he was treading too close to the line. He pulled back and approached from another angle. _Should have known he wouldn’t take too kindly to me attacking his merry band of misfits._

“You deserve a break, Rick. And I’m not just blowin’ smoke here- if I hadn’t had people I could delegate shit to, I’d have lost my damn mind runnin’ the Saviors. It’s like you’re always saying- you’re rebuilding civilization. That’s a lot to fucking deal with. And on top of that, people are fightin’ you every step of the way. You never asked for any of this, but nobody’s willing to step up and give you any relief, are they?”

Rick’s silence was telling.

“Daryl gets a break. He isn’t in charge of nearly as much as you are, but he can just up and walk away. But you can’t do that, can you? No matter where you go, people expect shit out of you. At the bridge-”

Rick thought of all the workers there coming to him for every little question, every bump in the road. The former Saviors, half of whom gave him the evil eye and half of whom looked at him with awe and reverence that felt unearned.

“-in Alexandria-”

He’d been put in charge of the bulk of the farming since he had the knowledge passed down from Hershel. At one point, the earthy smell of the gardens had been a balm to his frayed nerves, but now he found himself settling disputes between the others over who could grow what where and worrying about the harvest.

“Hell, you’re a fuckin’ parent. You got a little one you’re tryin’ to raise up right, and as much as I know you love her, three-year-olds are a fucking handful, especially when you can’t be home with her all the time.”

If it were up to him, that’s all he would do. He’d tend his own gardens and read books with Judith and teach her the alphabet and paint with her on the porch. And maybe, just maybe, once every blue moon, he’d get an hour or two to himself…

“Never get any time to yourself, do you?”

Rick’s eyes snapped open in shock- it was like Negan could read his damn _mind_. The thought both unnerved him…and gave him the oddest sense of relief. These days, it felt like nobody cared to know what he wanted. What he _needed_. That Negan could see right through him and down into that messy, exhausted core was unexpected but not entirely unwanted. It was comforting to be seen.

“Answer me, Rick.” Negan’s tone was gentle, but had that commanding, unyielding edge that saw the words spilling off Rick’s tongue with ease.

“No,” he whispered. “Not in a long time.”

Negan smirked in the dark. “You need it though, don’t you? Need someone that will take all your worries away, just for a little while. Take all that weight on your shoulders and tell you that you don’t have to carry it all the goddamn time.”

That sounded so nice. So _free_.

“You need someone else to be in charge for once. To force you to lay it all down. Because you’ll never give all that shit up on your own, will you, Rick? No, that’s not who you are. You’ll just keep drivin’ yourself into the ground for the people around you, and they’ll keep letting you, because it’s easier for them. Easier than picking up the slack themselves.”

It had taken Lori’s death and his subsequent mental break to force him to step away from leadership at the prison. He couldn’t see himself doing so again, not without someone else stepping up in his place. And nobody was offering.

“I can help you, Rick.”

Rick could only stare. How the hell could _Negan_ -?

“You and I need the same thing, Rick. We need someone else. I’m not above admitting that I’ve be goin’ more than a little stir-crazy cooped up in here with nothing to stick my dick into but my fist.”

Rick stared dumbly at the other man’s face, made hollow at the cheeks by deep shadows. Surely he wasn’t implying that-

“I know you felt it too, Rick. I saw it in your eyes- that fucking _need_ that settles in your gut and stays there. I saw it the first night I met you when I had you on your knees.” This was dangerous water to tread, and Negan knew it- one toe out of line, and he’d have Rick reeling back and screaming in his face. “I saw it the first time I came to Alexandria and you bared those pretty white teeth at me in the pantry. I saw it written all over your face that same day when I whispered in your ear before I left. You remember what I said, don’t you?”

Oh, Rick remembered it, complete with warm breath making his curls flutter and sending goosebumps crawling across his skin. He remembered how the words had rolled around in his head for days after as he’d tossed and turned on the floor, his mattress thieved by the Saviors.

“I just slid my dick down your throat, and you thanked me for it.” Negan relished the weight of it on his tongue, the memory of Rick’s wide, shocked eyes. Nobody had ever spoken to him like that before, Negan was positive. “You thought about it after, didn’t you? When you were alone and couldn’t escape it. Thought about what it would feel like. What it would _taste_ like.”

Saliva pooled in Rick’s mouth.

“Have you ever let anyone take control from you like that, Rick? Just the two of you behind closed doors?”

Rick shuddered, recalling the times he’d allowed himself to be vulnerable like that in his marriage. The rhythmic jangle of his handcuffs tight around his wrists, the red lines of nails down his chest, the sting of a hand on the meat of his thigh, the curve of his backside.

“Oh, _shit_.” Negan’s eyebrows shot up high on his forehead. “You have. And here I thought the freakiest you’d ever gotten was havin’ sex with the lights on. Aren’t you just fucking full of surprises.”

Finally, blessedly, Rick found his voice again enough to croak out a retort. “I was able to do that because I _trusted_ my wife. I can’t trust you, Negan.”

“You can. I’m not your ol’ lady, sure, but I can promise you this, Rick: I will never lay another hand on you that you don’t want. You can ask my people- I don’t take kindly to that shit. You say the word, and we’ll stop right that fucking second. I ain’t got much left, but I have my word, and I’d swear it in blood, Rick- my word on this is as good as gold.”

Rick couldn’t believe he wasn’t turning away and marching out the door.

“I’ll make you feel things, Rick. Things you haven’t felt in years, things you’ve never felt before. It would just be you and me in here- our little secret. Nobody would have to know. Anytime shit out there gets to be too much, you can come to me and I’ll make you lay it all down.”

“Negan-”

“You want to say yes. We _both_ know it. So say yes, Rick.”

 _No_ , Rick’s mind supplied readily. _You can’t trust him. He has every reason to use this against you. To hurt you the second you stick your hand into the lion’s den. Walk away._

“Say yes,” Negan repeated, and Rick’s fate was sealed.

“Yes,” he rasped. His acquiescence seemed inevitable, freeing.

Negan stood at the bars, his hand out for Rick to take. He didn’t recall reaching for the other man, but Rick found their fingers laced together anyway, found himself drawn closer than he’d allowed himself to be before. Nose to nose, fabric and flesh pressed between the bars, Negan held him there with only a look.

“Give me a kiss, Rick. Let me know you mean it.”

The feeling of Negan’s large hand snaking around his waist to hold him in place should have alarmed him, but all Rick could feel was the deafening drumbeat of his heart in his chest, the heat of the taller man’s body and then the press of warm lips as he was taken and devoured. Negan kissed like Rick had imagined in his most private, guarded fantasies, with teeth nipping and tongue claiming. He heard a pained moan echo around them that he didn’t recognize as his own, and the answering suck to his lower lip felt like a reward for letting go. A stubborn, proud part of Rick wanted to match Negan’s rough pace, but another part- the part that won out- pleaded with him to let someone else take the lead.

When they broke apart, Rick’s lips tingled, and he could feel that they were tender and swollen. He felt like he’d sprinted halfway to the Hilltop for how gone his breath was, but still he didn’t move until Negan released him, giving him a quick, satisfied once-over.

“Go get some sleep, cowboy. You’re dead on your feet.”

Rick nodded mutely, and as he was walking away, Negan called out behind him.

“And come back to see me tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you @ everyone who's been reading & leaving feedback, it's greatly appreciated! <3


	4. Rise

That night, Rick dreamed of Negan’s hands petting through his hair and the press of metal bars on either side of his face as he was held. He dreamed of aching knees and a sore jaw that persisted when he woke up because he had been clenching his teeth in his sleep so tightly that it pained him.

He dreamed of those words again, filthy and degrading but so _enticing_ all the same, the sweet before the rot.

He could still feel the nip on his lower lip, and every time someone passed him on the street, he felt like they could see it on him, a scarlet stain. He wondered what letter they would brand him with? _B_ for betrayer, backstabber, _W_ for whore-

“Rick! You about to head out to camp?” Aaron bounded up beside him, full of energy in a way that Rick couldn’t fathom. Between working all day on the bridge and coming home to a child a younger than Judith, he had to be exhausted.

“I was about to. Right after I…” he held up the tray of eggs, toast, and apple juice. Aaron nodded, understanding.

“Gotcha. You mind if I ride with you? Next guard’s not gonna be here for another forty minutes or so.”

Rick nodded his assent. “Sure. You mind gettin’ her saddled up? I won’t be but a couple minutes.”

“No problem.” Aaron strode off toward the paddock with a wave, leaving Rick at the maw of the beast.

It was strange, casually strolling in with breakfast like nothing had changed, like eight hours ago Negan’s lips hadn’t been on his, like Rick hadn’t wanted him so badly he could have screamed.

“Well, well, well. Ain’t you an early bird. You know, I usually don’t fuck around until we’re in the double-digits of the morning, but I’ll make an exception for you today, cowboy. You wanna get the worm?”

Rick felt warmth touch his cheeks alongside the usual wave of annoyance, and he tried to hide his face as he placed the tray within Negan’s reach. “I’m just droppin’ off breakfast before I head out to the bridge.”

Negan sat up in bed, his short hair sticking up on one side. Somehow, it made him seem less menacing- a cat with his claws sheathed. “Well that’s no fucking fun at all, Rick. I’ve been dreamin’ all night about what I want to do to you.” A wicked smile spread over the man’s face, and suddenly Rick felt stripped. “And I'd bet my left nut you were dreamin’ about me, too.”

Rick swallowed and swallowed against a desert-dry throat. “I’ll be back tonight. Someone else’ll feed you in the meantime.”

“How’d you take it? In your dream, I mean. I bet you were on your back for me- or maybe I’ve got you pegged all wrong. Maybe you just wanna bend over for me and take it about as hard as you can while I-”

“ _Negan_.” Heat prickled across Rick’s chest. “That’s enough.”

Rick's tone didn't deter Negan in the least. In fact, if anything, his smile only seemed to widen. “You’re not gettin’ cold feet on me, are you, Ricky-boy? Because as I seem to recall, last night I just about had you on your knees.”

Rick tried to repress the shudder that wanted to ripple through him. “I’m not,” he whispered, and then more confidently- “I’ve got someone waitin’ on me. I’m not about to walk out lookin’ like-” Rick flushed, picturing himself red-faced and hair mussed with bruised lips. If Negan’s smirk was any indication, he was picturing it, too. Rick turned and headed for the stairs. “I’ll be back tonight.”

“It’s a date.”

* * *

As soon as Aaron mounted Millie behind Rick, he knew he’d made a mistake in allowing the other man to ride with him.

Most of their horses were more and capable of carrying two riders, especially on the short ride to the bridge, but Rick usually left early enough that he rode alone. Before today, it hadn’t been a thought in his head- he just liked getting there early. He’d always been more of a morning person, anyway.

But when Aaron saddled up behind him and slid his hands casually over Rick’s hips, he felt his whole body stiffen. The younger man was pressed close against Rick’s backside, his thighs flush with Rick’s own, his hands tightening on Rick’s waist when Millie broke into a hearty trot.

With the exception of last night, it was the closest Rick had been to another person in a good, long time, and it showed in the way the hairs on the back of his neck stood up every time Aaron so much as breathed, in the heat that was beginning to touch his cheeks.

“Thanks for letting me ride with you. I usually like leaving a little later, but Gracie was still asleep when I woke up, so I figured I’d head out earlier than usual.” Rick could almost hear the smile in Aaron’s voice at the mention of his daughter. Initially, Rick had worried he’d made a mistake by handing the baby girl over to a grieving Aaron to care for during the war- after things began to settle, he figured that someone from the former Saviors would step forward to claim her- a friend of her father, a mother if she was still in the picture. He and Aaron had both asked around, and while some knew of the baby, nobody had been close enough to her dad to want to take her on, and Aaron had been more than willing to give her a home.

Rick had always found that strange- how people could live in such close quarters and not feel a responsibility to each other. There were plenty of people in Alexandria that he didn’t know too well, but he’d be damned if he let a stranger take their children in the event of their death.

That lack of community was something that he hoped would improve as the Saviors integrated with the other groups. He could see changes in some people already- Alden had been the first to step up and set himself apart from the other Saviors, and others had followed. The first people to have greeted Tara and Rosita when they’d gone to help start repairs at the Sanctuary were Negan’s former wives, who had been nothing but grateful for the change of leadership since the beginning. Most of them had moves to other communities immediately- Amber and her mother to the Kingdom, Tanya and Frankie to the Hilltop. Every time Rick saw them now, they looked happier, healthier, content with their new, secure places in communities that welcomed them with open arms.

“It’s no problem,” Rick managed, trying to ignore Aaron’s grip on his hips. “How is Gracie? She sleepin’ through the night yet?”

“Sure is. Took her long enough, but she sleeps like a log most nights now. Still likes waking up before the sun’s up most days, but it’s worth it. Eric and I, we…” there was a sudden dropoff into melancholy in Aaron’s voice, and Rick’s heart ached for his friend. It was a pain he knew only too well, that loss of a partner.

 _Eight years_ , Aaron had told him after the war, when together they’d gone out to search for the walker that wore Eric’s face. _We’d been together for eight years, and never once did I think that it would stop there. We- we wanted to get married once it was legalized. Almost considered driving up to Massachusetts, but we really wanted to get married here, with our friends and family around us._

Rick reached back and placed a hand over Aaron’s. He felt the younger man squeeze his hip and heard the short, shuddering breath. “We always wanted a daughter,” Aaron finished, barely above a whisper. Guilt choked Rick just like it had so many times before- for Maggie, for Tara, for Sasha and Rosita and so, so many others who had lost someone dear to them. Sometimes, in his lowest moments, he wondered if his own loneliness was a punishment for all the people who had died around him, the people who he’d owed his life to that he hadn’t been able to save.

“I’m so sorry, Aaron,” Rick said quietly, and he could only hope that the other man heard the depth of his apology in his voice. “I can’t say enough how sorry I am for what happened to you. To Eric.”

_And here you are, thinking about how it feels to have him pressed against you. Thinking about his hands on you, like you somehow deserve them. Like he wants to put them there, like he isn’t still mourning the man that should have been his husband._

They rode in silence for the rest of the journey, Rick focusing steadfastly on the road ahead so that he wouldn’t damn himself more by thinking of the man behind him.

* * *

Rick was dead on his feet when he rode back into Alexandria late that night, but he didn’t go home. Home was safe, home was warmth and a comfortable bed and soft sheets and everything he felt that he didn’t deserve. And as much as it pained him to admit it, even in the privacy of his own mind- it wasn’t what he needed.

He didn’t think, he just let his aching feet carry him down the steps and through the door to Negan’s cell. He felt hollowed-out from a long day of mentally berating himself over Aaron, and all he wanted was for Negan to make him forget, to wipe his mind clean of anything and everything that wasn’t him.

The room was so dark that Rick initially thought Negan was asleep- he could barely make out the older man’s reclining form on the bed, but then he heard the creak of the mattress, saw the shadowy mass of the other man sitting up to face him.

“I was beginning to think you’d stood me up, Rick.”

His voice, though light, held a thread of warning that made Rick’s knees weak. He had to fight to find his words. “Construction ran late.”

“Fucking rude to show up late to a first date. I thought you had better manners than that.” Negan rose to standing, and Rick’s heart hammered against his ribs so violently that he was sure Negan could hear it. Negan was a specter looming against the bars, just the glint of white teeth and flashes of his eyes giving away any sort of humanity. “Light a fucking candle, darlin’. I wanna see you.”

Rick reached for the matchbook on the far windowsill, well outside of Negan’s reach, and lit the candle that stood there. He should have been embarrassed by how badly his fingers trembled, how he fumbled the first match and had to strike another, but he felt out of his mind, too far gone to even worry about it.

When he turned, Negan was bathed in flickering orange light that danced in his eyes. Rick swallowed hard as he took him in, from the lust written plainly on his face to the significant bulge beginning to tent the front of his loose pants.

“Well, Rick?” Negan tapped one bare foot against the floor expectantly. “You gonna apologize for makin’ me wait on you or what?”

Choler choked Rick just for a moment, and he was ready to snap out a reply when Negan cut him off at the head.

“Come here.”

Rick was in front of Negan before he could think better of it, one hand gripping the cold metal bar between them. He wasn’t sure what he expected- for Negan to seize him and drag him forward, for lips to swallow his protests down, for a biting remark about how obedient he was being.

“Goddamn, Rick. What happened to _you_ today?” Negan looked him over searchingly, and once again Rick felt stripped by the man’s omniscient gaze. “You need it real bad, don’t you?”

Without thinking, Rick replied with a raspy, “yes,” and Negan’s knowing smile grew.

“Yeah,” he rumbled, one hand reaching out to pet through Rick’s short hair, “I fucking know you do.” Nails scratched Rick’s scalp, and he shuddered from head to toe, his cock beginning to thicken. His eyes had just fluttered shut at the bliss of it when Negan’s voice cut through the calm like a knife through warm butter.

“Get on your knees.”

Rick’s eyes flew open, a shocked breath sucked in through his teeth. He held Negan’s unflinching gaze, feeling his own face growing warm. Negan clucked his tongue, unimpressed. “You really want to fight me on this, Rick? I bet I’ll win. You know why?” He leaned in closer, words touching Rick’s cheek as warm breath. “Because you _want_ to. Yeah, that’s right, Rick. I can tell- it’s what you fucking _need_. You need to be on your knees for me, mouth wide open, choking around my dick until you can’t fucking take it anymore. You need to feel what it’s like, know if it’s just as good as you imagined it was. Nobody else will give it to you, will they? They wouldn’t understand. But me? I fucking get it.” Negan’s hand clamped around the back of Rick’s neck, just shy of painful, and Rick’s legs were jelly before Negan could even push him down. “So get on your fucking knees for me.”

Pain shot up Rick’s knees to his hips and he practically collapsed to the concrete floor. He couldn’t account for himself, but there he was, willingly, looking up at Negan with pleading eyes as the other man rubbed from his neck up to his jaw, where his grip turned more gentle and cautious. Long fingers stroked through his beard, thumbing open his mouth and pressing down on his tongue, and Rick let him.

“Let me set some things straight here, Rick,” Negan began casually, as if he wasn’t fingering over Rick’s tongue with intent for more. “I need you to understand how this works before we get started, alright? First off, I may be in control, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a say in how this shit goes down between us. You tell me to stop, I’ll stop, no questions asked. You tell me to slow down, that you need a break, that you don’t feel comfortable, anything like that- I’ll back off. I’m here to fuck you, not to brutalize you. And I swear to you, Rick- I’ll listen. We’re gonna start off slow. Trust has to be earned, I get that. I’ll give you what you need. I’ll take everything off your shoulders, make you forget. Make you _mine_. I’ll hurt you if you need it, if you want it. If you can _take_ it. I’m in control of what we do down here- but you have the power to tell me to stop. And there is no fucking shame in stopping. Look at me, Rick.”

Rick’s eyes snapped up to Negan’s, wide and weary.

“Don’t you fucking dare take any of this as a challenge, do you hear me? I’m gonna help you. I know what you need. Just let me.”

“Okay,” Rick breathed out, surprising himself by answering without being asked. Negan smirked, and then his fingers left Rick’s mouth to unzip his pants. Rick’s heart stuttered in his chest as Negan drew himself out- he was bigger than Rick had expected, longer, and the tiniest twinge of apprehension sparked to life amid the arousal he’d been caught up in. Negan saw it, and reached out to cup Rick’s jaw with the hand that wasn’t holding his cock.

“Don’t be scared of it, darlin’. It’s not gonna bite.” Negan stroked over the plush of Rick’s lower lip, and immediately his mouth fell open. “You can take it. I know you can.”

 _I know I can_ , Rick thought, and then the velvety head of Negan’s cock slid over his tongue, the salty taste spreading and making Rick crave more. Instinctively, he closed his lips around the head and sucked tentatively, pleased when he heard Negan’s breathing hitch above him. It had been a long time since he’d been on the receiving end of a blowjob, but Rick wracked his memory for what he knew he liked- cheeks hollowed as Negan inched in further, tongue wet against the underside, teeth out of the way.

It was when he felt the head of Negan’s cock butt up against the back of his throat that he felt the beginnings of panic. The man above him kept going, inching down Rick’s throat and choking him, making tears well up in the corners of his eyes. Torn between taking it and pulling away, Rick suddenly felt Negan slide out until just the tip remained in his mouth. When he glanced up, he saw Negan watching him carefully.

“You can take it, Rick. C’mon.”

Nails scratched over Rick’s scalp again, from his hairline to the nape of his neck, and he shivered with pleasure, the next slide of Negan’s cock going down smoother. The man pulled back before he could cough, and on the next thrust, Rick breathed through his nose, steadying himself with a long breath.

“There you go, darlin’.” Negan’s hips set a steady pace that was easy enough for Rick to follow, and he learned to swallow around the cock in his throat, learned to breathe and suckle just where Negan liked. “I fuckin’ knew you’d be good at this. Perfect pink lips, can’t fucking tell you how many times I’ve thought about you takin’ it like this for me.” Rick’s cheeks and chest burned, and Negan began to speed up his pace. “You like this, don’t you, Rick? You like bein’ on your knees for me, my dick ramming down your throat?” Rick moaned around Negan’s length, memories of his dream last night mixing with the situation at hand. He was hard, the full length of him pressing painfully against the front of his jeans. He felt completely overwhelmed by Negan, utterly mastered by the other man. His jaw ached and his face was flushed and tears were leaking from the corners of his eyes, saliva pooling in his mouth and spilling down his chin when Negan pulled out, and he _loved_ it. It was inevitable that his hands found their way to the front of his pants, rubbing himself off through the rough denim as his mouth was mercilessly fucked.

Suddenly, Negan’s cock was jerked out of Rick’s willing mouth and Rick was left bereft and stunned, staring up at the man glowering down at him. “What-”

“Did I fucking tell you that you could touch yourself?”

Rick’s hands, still between his legs, came to a jerky stop. He felt embarrassed, like a scolded child, and ducked his head. “I-”

Fingers dug harshly into his cheeks, and Rick’s breath began to quicken as memories flooded his mind- Negan screaming in his face and slapping him _hard_ as he sobbed, the weight of his axe in his hand, Carl on the ground beside him-

“You _do not_ touch yourself unless I say you can. You do not get off unless I give you permission to do so. Do you understand me, Rick?”

_You provide for me. You belong to me. Say it._

“Yes- _yes_ -” Rick was horrified to feel hot tears spilling down his cheeks, his whole body trembling. His hands gripped the metal bars so hard his knuckles went white. His mouth fell open again, lips parting for Negan to slide between.

_You deserve this. For what you did to Aaron. For what you led everyone into._

Negan’s form was blurred by the tears in Rick’s eyes, and he expected the man’s length to ram back down his throat, punishing him for his misstep. Instead, he felt Negan’s grip loosen on him, thumbs wiping away the tears on his cheeks. “Hey. Come back, Rick. C’mon. Shh, darlin’, it’s alright now. You didn’t know. Now you do.” Rick shivered and pressed his face into Negan’s palm, seeking comfort that he felt he didn’t deserve. “You can take a little more, can’t you, Rick? You were doin’ so good for me.”

Rick ate up the scraps of praise like a starving man, feeling desperate for more, willing to do whatever it took to wring more of it out of the man above him. He nodded, mouth falling open again. “Please.”

Negan groaned, and then his dick was sliding back into Rick’s mouth, and Rick eagerly took it, hollowing his cheeks in hopes of pleasing the other man. He sucked and swallowed eagerly, his own unattended erection nearly forgotten in his longing to please.

“ _Jesus_ , Rick, you suck dick like a fuckin’ pro. Like you’ve been on your knees for every man willing to stick in in you.” Negan was beginning to come undone, Rick could hear the waver in his usually-steady voice. “Bet you were a little whore back in your day.”

 _Only now_ , Rick thought. _Only when no one else will have me. Only for you, because you have what I need._

“You’re- you’re gonna fucking take it,” Negan gasped out, his thrusts growing unsteady, “and you’re gonna swallow every fucking drop if you want me to get you off after, you hear me, Rick?”

He didn’t have time to nod a _yes_ before Negan was spilling down his throat. Rick’s eyes and chest burned, salty, bitter release filling his mouth. He couldn’t breathe, but he swallowed all the same, and when Negan finally pulled out, he was gasping for breath like he’d been running from a hoard of walkers. The taste was foreign and he had to fight every instinct he had to cough and splutter.

Before he could get his bearings, Rick was yanked up to his feet, and the world surely would have spun out beneath him if Negan hadn’t been holding him upright. He clutched weakly at the bars as Negan reached between his legs and cupped him roughly, kneading his hard dick through the denim. The cry that left Rick was practically a wail, and if he’d been anywhere close to his right mind, he would have been horrified and humiliated, but as it was, all he could focus on was the near-painful pleasure of Negan rubbing him off through his jeans.

“You earned this, Rick. Did so well for me. Took it like a fucking champ. I bet your voice is gonna be a wreck tomorrow. I can’t _wait_ to hear that. Wonder what lie you’ll tell your people to get them off your back?” Rick knew he would look back on this moment with self-loathing, but he couldn't help how his hips stuttered gratefully into Negan’s palm, chasing the release that he’d been denied. His head was thick and foggy, Negan’s touch the only thing he could grasp onto with any kind of clarity. “Come on, Rick. I can see how fucking bad you need it- hell, I can _feel_ it. You’re hard as steel for me, aren’t you? Let me see you come.”

Rick gasped and groaned and spilled in his jeans in an orgasm so intense that he nearly fell right back onto the floor. Negan held him up by the waist, rubbing him through it until Rick whimpered and tried to pull away, oversensitive and spent. When he came slowly back into himself, he was aware of his head resting against the bars, of wetness spreading across the front of his pants. _God, I hope nobody sees me walking home._

Negan was quiet, and the words that came out of Rick’s mouth next, completely unprompted, would haunt him in his waking hours.

“Thank you.”


	5. Coming Down

Rick slept like a baby that night, only to wake the next morning feeling completely drained as if he hadn’t slept at all.

Rain pounded on the roof and pattered against the windows, the kind of heavy end-of-days downpour that meant little would get done that day. Certainly nothing could be done on the bridge. Usually such a day would get Rick in high spirits- a mandated day off that he could spend at home with Judith. The last rainy day they’d had, he’d woken up before she did, made blueberry pancakes for breakfast, and found her a pair of rainboots and a coat the were wedged into the closet in one of the spare rooms. They’d gone outside and splashed in puddles and he’d taught her how to make little boats out of leaves and twigs that they could race down the streams of the sidewalk- all the things he used to do on rainy days as a kid, the things he used to do with Carl when he was young.

Today, the cloud cover and the rhythm of the rain seemed to be encouraging him to sink further into bed and drift back to sleep. Thunder rumbled low somewhere far in the distance, and Rick’s mind wandered back to the night before, to Negan’s hands on him. The ache in his knees and his jaw would make it hard to forget for another day or two.

It probably should have bothered him. It definitely should have bothered him that he fell so easily to his knees, that he’d thanked Negan without being asked, that he’d found himself at the man’s mercy to begin with. He should be ashamed, and a part of him was. There was a part of him that thought of Glenn and Abraham and Maggie and Sasha and Eric and Aaron and everyone who had been lost or who had lost someone because of Negan and the shame of what he’d done last night nearly made him sick. If Maggie knew, she’d never speak to him again. If Daryl knew, he’d lay into him in the middle of town, and he would take it because god knew he deserved it.

And maybe that was what it came down to for him- he _deserved_ it. He deserved the roughness and humiliation and the shame and the aches that followed. Maybe if he was less honest with himself, he could pretend that what he was doing was a form of self-flagellation and nothing more.

Except that he’d wanted it. He liked it, _craved_ it, even, enough so that as he lay in bed alone, he wished he was back in Negan’s cell. If it was truly a punishment, he wouldn’t allow himself to linger on the praise Negan had given him last night, playing it over and over in his head in an attempt to fight off the fatigue keeping him in bed.

_You earned this, Rick. Did so well for me. Knew you’d be good at this._

They were barely scraps, but Rick was starved for them, and he’d take what he could get. It made him wonder what he could do to wring more of that praise out of Negan. Maybe he’d get more as he got more practice. That had been his first time with a man, after all.

Desperately, he rooted through his brain to try to find other kind words Negan had thrown his way over the years. Most of them were more on the vulgar side, flirtation tossed at him through the bars of the cell meant to get under his skin.

_You gainin’ a little weight? It looks damn good on you, I can almost see your ass in those ratty fuckin’ jeans._

_Jesus, cowboy, your eyes are somethin’ else, you know that?_

_You, sir, are special._

_I missed you._

It was cruel of him to do this to himself, and he knew it. Everything was twisted up, Negan’s barbs and thorned flirtations suddenly becoming like lover’s epithets in his desperation.

Another clap of thunder, closer this time, and Rick heard a tiny yelp down the hallway and the patter of feet racing toward his bedroom. A wild mane of curls appeared in his doorway, paired with wide, terrified eyes.

“Daddy?”

Rick pulled back the covers beside him and patted the bed. “C’mere, sweetheart. It’s alright.”

Judith darted into bed beside him and pulled the quilt up over her ears. Rick could feel her trembling with fear, and he pulled her against his chest, planting a kiss on the top of her head. “It’s alright, Jude. Remember what I told you about thunder?”

“It can’t hurt you,” Judith mumbled, her voice muffled by the blankets she’d buried herself beneath. Another clap resounded outside, and Rick felt his daughter startle beside him. He held her closer, her head tucked beneath his chin.

“That’s right. Doesn’t mean it’s not scary, though, huh?” She shook her head, and Rick rubbed her back to soothe her. He heard her yawn against his chest, and he smiled. “How about you stay here and we’ll sleep in today. We’ll wake up in a little while and make breakfast and eat it on the couch. How’s that sound?”

“Okay,” Judith wobbled out, clutching at his shirt. “But I can’t sleep.”

An idea struck Rick. “Hey, I’m gonna get out of bed real quick, alright? But I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

Judith watched from beneath her blanket cover as Rick slid out of bed and began rifling through the records filed away on his bookshelf. He selected one and put it on before climbing back into bed and tucking himself protectively around Judith once more. The next clap of thunder was drowned out slightly by the sound of the music playing and Johnny Cash’s rhythmic warble.

 _Well I woke up Sunday morning_  
With no way to hold my head that didn't hurt  
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad  
So I had one more for dessert

“That better?” Rick asked, and Judith nodded, her head pillowed in the crook of his arm. As they began to drift off together, Rick caught snippets of the lyrics, the words playing over and over in his head and seeping down into that lonesome place that he’d been trying to fill with Negan’s praise.

_‘Cause there's something in a Sunday that makes a body feel alone_

* * *

“Daddy, I’m hungry.”

Rick cracked one heavy eyelid to see Judith sitting up beside him and pushing his shoulder to wake him up. It was still raining, but the thunder seemed to have stopped for the time being.

“You’re awake!”

Rick grunted a half-laugh and forced himself up to sitting. The record had long since ended and when he glanced at his watch, he groaned. _Nearly eleven. Christ, I can’t remember the last time I slept in this late._

“I’m up, sweet pea. Give daddy a minute and I’ll get started on breakfast, alright?” Frustratingly, the extra few hours of sleep hadn’t washed the weariness out of his bones. If Judith hadn’t been looking up at him expectantly, he probably would have gone right back to bed.

He was glad she was too restless to be carried- he felt weighed down enough without another thirty pounds in his arms. His head felt foggy as he let himself be led by his daughter downstairs and into the kitchen. _Please, don’t let her want pancakes, I don’t have the energy to make pancakes._

“How about sunny-side up eggs, Jude? We need some sunshine since it’s a rainy day.” His tactic worked- she nodded enthusiastically and reached for the bread sealed tightly away in a box on the counter.

Eggs and toast. That, he could do.

It helped that Judith was keen to do things herself. She made their toast with his supervision, spreading a thick layer of blackberry preserves across the browned bread just as the eggs were ready to slide onto their plates.

As promised, they ate together on the couch. Rick chugged his coffee in hopes that it would add a little pep to his step so he could keep up with Judith the rest of the day, but found that he was still foggy even with a full belly and caffeine in his veins. Judith would want to go outside, he was sure of it. Selfishly, he wanted to stay indoors where it was warm and comfortable.

“Do you have to go away today?” Judith asked as she licked her fingers clean of jam. Rick shook his head, a pang searing through his chest. Carl used to ask him the same thing when he was younger when Rick had a weekend shift at the station: _Dad, do you have to go to work today? Mom and I were gonna go to the park._

“Not today, sweetheart. It’s just you and me.” He glanced around at the empty chair on the other side of the table, and an idea began to form in his head. “You know what I used to love doin’ on rainy days like this?”

Judith cocked her heard curiously up at him, her warm brown eyes a startling mirror of Lori's. “What?”

“I’d make a blanket fort. You want me to show you how?”

“Yeah!” Judith’s face lit up, and Rick breathed a sigh of relief.

“Alright, I need you to go grab all the pillows and blankets off your bed. I’m gonna clean up the kitchen and then we’ll get to buildin’, alright?”

“Okay!” Her plate long forgotten, Judith hurried up the stairs. Rick allowed himself a second of respite before gathering up their dishes and sticking them in the sink. _No reason they need to be done now. I’ll get ‘em later._

* * *

Forty minutes and one minor pillow-related collapse later, Rick and Judith had constructed a fort using all of the pillows and blankets from their beds and the couch, the structure held up by strategically placed chairs from the kitchen table. Rick lit a lantern and placed it safely out of reach where it couldn’t be knocked over, and Judith had gathered stuffed animals and action figures and coloring books to fill her new playspace. Somewhere in between reading Alice In Wonderland and coloring a picture of a pig, Rick drifted off, curled on the floor amid piles of stuffed animals. If Judith noticed, she didn’t mind, too absorbed in her own imagination.

“Rick?”

_“Mm?”_

“Rick, are you alright?”

Rick squeezed the person in his arms tighter, nose buried in short, soft hair. “’M jus’ tired.”

“ _Rick_. Wake up.”

A sharp prod to his shoulder, and Rick’s eyes shot open. Michonne was half-inside the fort, and when he looked down, the thing he’d thought was a person was actually one of Judith’s stuffed cats. She must have tucked it into his arms to keep him company while he slept. His face reddened and when he pushed himself to sitting, he dislodged the carefully arranged stuffed animals that Judith had tucked all around him during his nap.

“Sh-” Rick bit his lip, glancing around for Judith, who had apparently grown bored and wandered off. “Where’s Judith?”

Michonne frowned. “She’s on the porch. I told her I’d walk down to the pond with her and see if there are any frogs. Are you alright? It’s nearly three.”

Rick groaned and ran his hands through his hair. “Shit.”

“Yeah, I’ll say. You gettin’ sick? You haven’t slept like that since-”

She broke off before she could say it aloud, but Rick’s mind readily supplied the end of her sentence: _since right after Carl died._

“I dunno. Just woke up feelin’ drained. ‘M alright. Just one of those days, I guess.” He felt rather foolish, having been discovered napping in the middle of the day in a pillow fort. The guilt hit him all at one. “Fuck- I need to make Judith lunch before she goes.” He tried to stand and nearly knocked the lantern over, only to be steadied by Michonne’s quick reflexes.

“Hey, it’s alright- I brought sandwiches. Left one on the counter for you. Siddiq made a bunch this morning and I figured you and Judith could use a snack.”

It was funny, how Rick could feel guilty and relieved all at once. “Thank you.”

Michonne smiled, but there was concern in her eyes. “It’s not a problem. We’ll be back in a little while, alright? Oh- and Siddiq took Negan his meals today, too. Said he wasn’t much of a problem besides asking where you were.”

Rick’s insides twisted. “Oh?”

“Yeah. Just the usual stuff.” Michonne grinned. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that man had a bit of a crush on you. You oughta tease him about it. Might get him to shut the hell up for once.”

Luckily for Rick, Michonne turned away in time to miss the look of panic on his face. _What the hell did Negan say?_ He watched her leave hand-in-hand with Judith, and it was with leaden limbs that he dragged himself to the counter to eat the pb & j Michonne had left for him.

He was sorely tempted to go running to Negan right away, shake him down and demand to know exactly what he’d said to Siddiq so he could do damage control. _That’d only make people more suspicious. You’re actin’ crazy. Get it together. You can ask him tonight._

* * *

“That had _better_ not be another fucking peanut butter sandwich. I told Doctor Dreamy I hate that shit. Makes me feel like I'm in the fifth fuckin' grade. And he puts too much peanut butter on them. Who the hell wants more peanut butter than jelly?”

If Rick had been in a better mood, he may have chuckled at _Doctor Dreamy_. As it was, he sighed and handed Negan his food. “It’s tuna. And most people like more peanut butter than jelly.”

“Not me,” Negan muttered. “Why the hell’d you ditch me today, Ricky? You sure don’t know how to treat a guy after a hookup. I thought you’d at least call. Slip a note in my locker.” He swallowed a mouthful of tuna and grinned, looking Rick up and down for the first time. “Je- _sus_. You’re worn the fuck out, aren’t you? I knocked you right on your ass. See, Rick, that’s what a good orgasm will do to you. Bet you slept like a goddamned baby.”

Rick picked at a loose thread in his jeans. “I slept alright.” He didn’t want Negan’s ego inflating even more than it already was, but also…he wasn’t sure that what he was feeling was because of Negan’s prowess. He’d expected to feel a bit achey, but his mood today was unexpected and not entirely welcome. “I think I might be gettin’ sick or somethin’.”

Negan scoffed, crumbs flying, and Rick felt the overwhelming and childish urge to tell him to _say it, don’t spray it_. “I’m gettin’ sick, too. Sick of that fuckin’ high horse you keep ridin’ in here. There’s no room for that shit, Rick. Cell’s too fuckin’ small. Park her outside and get down in the fucking dirt with me.”

Rick gritted this teeth. “There’s a bug goin’ around. Let me know if you start _really_ feelin’ sick.”

“You gonna send Doctor Dreamy down here to check me out? Give me a physical?” Negan laughed at Rick’s grimace. “Oh, shit. Don’t tell me you’re _jealous_ , Rick! That is just _adorable_. Don’t worry, honey. I don’t think the good doctor is quite as willing as you.”

Rick’s stomach flipped over guiltily, and he pushed to his feet, the metal scrape of the chair grating in his ears. “I’ve gotta go. Enjoy your dinner.”

“Aw, Rick. Come back here, you know I didn’t mean it like that.”

He hadn’t come here to be mocked, though lord knew why he’d thought last night would change his day-to-day interactions with Negan. Rick was going to leave. He _was_. Only then, Negan’s tone shifted, going from barbed to honey-smooth and enticing.

“Rick, c’mon. Come sit with me a while, pretty fucking please? Keep me company, baby. I’ve been waitin’ all day to see your pretty face.”

And just like that, Rick was back in his seat. It wasn’t that he felt the need to be obedient- no, that only extended to sex. But that voice, the sweet words- it was what he’d been craving all day, and it drew him in like a fly to honey.

“I’m sorry, Rick. Really, I know I can be an asshole sometimes. Especially to you- god knows you’ve gotten the worst of it the last couple years.” Negan licked his thumb and gathered the crumbs off his plate with a frown. “You’re the only person who gives half a shit about me.  Don’t think for a second that I don’t know that.” Stunned, Rick could only blink. “I like talkin’ to you. And, yeah, a lot of the time that includes bustin’ your balls a little, but it’s only because I fuckin’ _like_  playin' with your balls so damn much.” He grinned lewdly, and Rick fought to keep his face impassive.

“Anyone ever tell you that you suck at apologies?”

Negan chuckled. “Every goddamned day of my life, baby.”

* * *

The next day, Rick felt mostly back to himself. Yesterday’s torrential rain had lightened to an on-and-off drizzle that allowed for some work to be done at the bridge, and he was relieved to get to camp and see that no branches had fallen and that the tentative construct over the muddy riverbed was still holding strong. They called it an early day due to the dreary weather, and despite being caked with mud from head to toe, Rick felt lighter for having gotten some work done.

Maybe that was it, he thought. It had been the same way after Carl- his worst days were always the ones without distraction, the ones he spent in the house without anything to keep his mind occupied and off of his grief.

He kicked off his mud-caked boots on the front porch, and not for the first time he wondered if he should try to scavenge up some work shoes- his beloved cowboy boots were looking worse for wear after all these years. He’d have to come out tomorrow and wash them off before wearing them again.

Everything about the day felt utterly _right_. Nobody had fought, he and Daryl had eaten lunch together and joked like old times. He was home in plenty of time to read Judith a bedtime story and tuck her in, and even his grimy clothes were shed with ease onto the bathroom floor, the soothing heat of the shower calling his name. He groaned as he stepped in, eyes fluttering closed in bliss. It had been a cold rain today, and the warmth  of the water cascading down his back and over his aching shoulders was nearly as good as the touch of another person. Judith was still finishing up a painting she’d begun before dinner- he had a wealth of time to enjoy the simple luxury of a long, hot shower.

He’d already been to see Negan, enduring far too many jokes about how much of a _dirty boy_ he was while waiting for the other man to finish his dinner of fire-heated pork and beans from a can. It surprised him a little that Negan wasn’t pushing for sex every time Rick showed up. Negan had clearly been a busy man when he’d been running the Sanctuary with five wives to come home to. Granted, it had been nearly two years since he’d been with anyone, and as much as he joked about his right hand being his only company while in his cell, surely he had better things to do all day than _that_. Rick brought him books. When he was feeling generous, he would lend Negan a puzzle or a rubix cube.

He didn’t need Negan tonight- he _didn’t_ , but his mind kept wandering back to the dark-haired man anyway. _I’m in control of what we do together_ , he’d said, and Rick had let him take the lead without question. He’d come in not knowing what to expect, and even now, after their first encounter, Rick had no clue what would happen the next time he came to Negan in need of release. Would it be the same thing- him on his knees with Negan’s cock down his throat and then a quick, messy rub through his jeans after? Somehow, Rick knew that it wasn’t going to stop there. The thought made both anxiety and excitement bloom in his belly.

Surely he’d get Rick naked at some point- would he want him in the cell with him? Or would that come later, when more trust was gained? Maybe next time Negan would slide his hand into Rick’s pants, stroke him under his clothes, skin on skin, until he shivered to pieces. Eventually, Rick was sure he’d want more. He’d want Rick bent over for him, moaning his name.

Rick’s cock, standing hard and needy between his hips, gave a valiant twitch. Without a second thought, he took himself in hand and gave a long, luxurious stroke to his length, sighing into the steam of the shower.

He had no idea what that would feel like- what Negan inside him would feel like. The most he’d ever done was let Lori slide one of her slender fingers into him, and that had only been once or twice when he was feeling brave. Embarrassment had always kept him from asking her to do it more often or doing it himself. He knew he liked it, just like he knew that he liked men, and both things were so interwoven with the harsh, conservative environment he’d been raised in that he hadn’t know what to do with the feelings once he’d discovered them. It had taken years and years of mindfulness to undo all of the shame he’d associated with his attraction to men, and by that point he was married and it was nobody’s business but his own, anyway.

 _Now_ , though- now, he was able to act on that part of himself for the first time, and he didn’t know what to expect. He felt like a blushing virgin all over again- would it hurt? Would he be any good at it? Would Negan expect more from him that what he would be able to give?

For now, he let himself imagine what it might be like. Him and Negan together, stripped and tangled together in the worn gray sheets of Negan’s bed. Would he be on his back? There was a certain appeal there, but there was also something to the idea of Negan bending him over and taking him from behind, one strong arm wrapped around his waist as he was fucked. Lips on his neck- or teeth, biting him from neck down his spine, leaving little red marks that he’d feel the next morning. His mind conjured up the memory of Negan’s cock, how it had felt sliding down his throat, its girth stretching his jaw, and he couldn’t imagine how it would feel sliding inside of him, but he wanted it, he _wanted_ -

“ _Fuck-!_ ” Rick grunted and fucked desperately into his fist as he came, white splashing onto the tile floor of the shower. It was too easy to imagine that it was Negan’s hand on him, tight and perfect, squeezing and milking him just how he liked.

A few minutes later, Rick stepped out of the shower feeling like a new- if somewhat lightheaded- man. He dressed in clean, comfortable clothes to sleep in and Judith was delighted when he hung her painting of _Aunt Tara_ and _Aunt Rosita_ on the fridge with a tiger magnet. She laughed at the silly voices he did for the next chapter of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, falling asleep at the very end, and he went to bed feeling, for once, like he’d had a good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm doing my best to update weekly, I swear! My schedule's busier than I'm used to, but rest assured, I'm here for the long haul. Also I know I've been terrible about replying, but just know I've read all of your comments and really appreciate them all so much :)


	6. Insight

_Nothing gold can stay._ Rick’s grandmother used to say that all the time, often catching a weary look from Rick’s mother after and a reminder that, “It’s not pessimism, it’s just a reminder for you to enjoy every golden moment.”

To be fair, Rick had enjoyed his solitary golden day wholeheartedly, but that didn’t make it any easier to wake up the next morning to a staticky voice coming from the radio sitting on his bedside table.

“Constable One, this is Eye in the Sky. I’ve got news on the Charlene formation, over.”

Rick groped blindly for the radio, squinting against the blinding sunlight streaming into the room from the window. “This is Constable One. What’s goin’ on out there, Tara?”

“The storm took out a tree along Lincoln Parkway. Looks like it made Charlene split into two groups. Charlene and Charlie. The bigger one’s still on course away from us, but little Charlie looks like he could make some trouble in Alexandria in an hour or two. Over.”

Rick was already out of bed and rooting through his closet for a clean shirt. “What kind of trouble?”

“Nothing major. It’s twenty, maybe twenty-five? But they’re gonna be right at the gates, so you may want to cut it off at the head before anyone leaves today, over.”

Rick pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. So much for a quiet morning. “Alright. We’ll take care of it. Let me know if there’s any change with Charlene.”

“Will do, Sheriff Sue.”

“No.”

“Aw, why not? You didn’t like my last three, either.”

“’Cause they were…” Rick tried to think of the proper way to describe Tara’s choice of call signs for him. “ _Colorful_.”

“I happen to think you could use a little color in your life, Papa Bear. And you never say ‘over’, either. It’s too early for you to be bumming me out like this.”

Rick groaned, but there was a laugh in there somewhere, fighting to break free. At the very least, Tara’s lively banter and insistence on calling him things like  _Papa Bear_  and  _Grimy Boots_  kept things lighthearted. “It’s too early for  _me_  to be rallyin’ the troops, but here I am,” Rick volleyed back, but it was with a smile. “Thanks for the heads up, Tara. Over and out.”

* * *

It was times like this that it really hit Rick how far they had come in the last few years. He could remember a time when one or two walkers put them on high alert- now, they were charging out like soldiers in arms to dispatch a small herd, full of confidence.

They were smart about it now- had a formation, a plan of attack. They went in back-to-back, Aaron with Rick, Michonne with Jadis. Melee weapons were preferred, bullets only used as a last resort.

Rick would never admit it to Negan, but there was a certain charm to using a club. Ed, the Hilltop’s blacksmith, had fashioned it for him and as much as he loved his hatchet, he’d taken easily to the new weapon.

“You good?” Rick asked Aaron, who nodded and braced himself as the herd came stumbling toward them.

“I’m good.”

The first crack of his club against a walker’s skull seemed to open the starting gate, because all at once, people were moving around him. Aaron felled two stragglers with his knife, Michonne was mowing down three at a time with her katana, Jadis was dropping them without flinching. There was a grace to it, a confidence that never turned to arrogance, and for that Rick was thankful. It was when they assumed they were safe that things began to slip.

The whole endeavor took less than ten minutes. Michonne, Rick noticed, was grinning at the end, easily shaking the worst of the gore from her katana. “I definitely win,” she said simply, and there was no contest- by Rick’s count, she’d taken out half by herself.

“You’ve got the best weapon for it,” he retorted with a smile. “We oughta be askin’ Ed to make nothin’ but katanas from now on.”

“It takes skill to handle it.” She pulled a rag from her pocked at wiped her blade clean, the steel shining in the early morning sun. “Not everyone’s used to something so long.”

Jadis looked to be right on the cusp of laughter, and Rick had to bite his tongue to keep from snorting. It was Aaron that spoke in the end. “I’ve handled longer.”

That got them all laughing, and it was with light hearts and bloodied clothes that they made their way back to Alexandria.

* * *

Two people from the Sanctuary were no-shows at the bridge that day, and it had Rick chewing his lip until it was raw. It was their agreement that the former Saviors would contribute the bulk of the labor on the bridge in exchange for the Hilltop continuing to provide their food. Food for labor- and it wasn’t like they were working out there alone. People from Alexandria and the Kingdom were out there too, giving up their days to toil in the sun and make sure things got done.

As soon as he noticed it, Rick sought Carol out. He found her in her tent, already on the radio with Regina back at the Sanctuary.

“Ma’am, they’re not here. I’ve had the whole damn place searching for them. I swear they left with the convoy this morning.” Regina sounded honestly unnerved, which did little to settle Rick's nerves.

Carol’s frown deepened, and Rick watched as she dug the tip of her knife into the wood of the table. “They must have broken off from the group. Can you spare four to scout the area?”

“Already on it. I’ll let you know if we find anything.”

“Let me know if you  _don’t_.”

“Yes ma’am. Over and out.”

Carol sighed and set the radio aside among the piles of books and blueprints for the bridge. “I guess I know why you’re here.”

Rick sank into the seat opposite Carol, stress already setting into his shoulders and knotting the muscles there tight. “They’re missing?”

“Apparently. Arat swears that they left with the second convoy that she was on this morning. They must have slipped away when they got close to camp.”

“Do you think they left, or…”  _or someone took them out?_

Carol shook her head. “I don’t know. Jasper and Ellie- they were decent folks. Trying to fall in line, trying to adjust. If you’d told me yesterday that two of my people ran off, I wouldn’t have guessed it would be them.”

Rick knew exactly what she meant. There were people like Jed at the Sanctuary, and then there were just normal folks trying to get by the best they could. Despite the bad news, Rick tried to find the silver lining, something to get that frustrated slump out of his friend’s shoulders.

“You called them  _your people_ ,” he noted with a small smile.

“I’m trying,” Carol answered with a shrug. “My home is still at the Kingdom, Rick. Make no mistake.”

“I’m not questionin’ that. I just…I appreciate you trying to think of them as part of our people.”

“That’s the point of all this, isn’t it? Integration? Community?” Carol cocked her head earnestly. 

Rick nodded. “It is. But I know it isn’t easy. I know it hasn’t been easy for you, bein’ there. Away from Ezekiel and Henry.”

There was the tiniest hint of pink in Carol’s cheeks. “I see them here most days. And you know me. I like my space.” Rick gave her a knowing look and she chuckled. “Don’t look at me like that, Richard. I’m not running away. Not this time.”

“You know my name’s not Richard.” Rick grinned.  “And I didn’t say anything.”

Carol rose to her feet and gave his shoulder a playful slap. “You didn’t have to. And not that it’s anyone’s business, but that’s  _not_  what’s going on. Ezekiel…I care about him. It’s just a lot, feeling that way after so long.” She gave him a tiny, shy smile. “But I’m in this one for the long haul.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Rick said. “And Carol? It may not be my business, but I’m glad you’re happy. You know that, right?”

Carol’s face melted into a sisterly, affectionate smile, and she planted a kiss on the top of Rick’s head before turning to duck out of the tent. “I know, sunshine.”

* * *

“What were you, Rick? See, I’ve got a bet goin’ with myself, but I need to know I’m right on the money. You were the oldest brother, right?”

Negan took a long slurp of his tomato soup, waiting patiently. Rick kept thinking about how when they kissed, he’d taste like grilled cheese and tomato.

“I had a younger brother,” Rick conceded with a frown. His relatives weren’t something he liked to think about. Aunts, uncles, his parents up in Kentucky, his brother in Ohio…all those people he’d never see again, people who he could only presume were dead, but he’d never know for sure. “His name was Jeffrey.”

Negan looked triumphant, though Rick couldn’t fathom why it mattered. “I fucking knew it. See, the oldest is always like you, at least a little bit. Got that need to prove themselves and protect everyone around them.”

“Seems like you’ve got me figured out. So what were you? Middle child that never got enough attention?”

“Nope,” Negan replied with a grin. “Only child. My parents had me and figured that was enough.”

Rick snorted, fighting the smile that tugged at his lips. “Smart folks.”

“I was a hellraiser. Didn’t mean to be, not at first, but I was. Caused enough trouble for three kids. Used to bring home stray dogs, snuck into empty houses with my friends, bought bottle rockets from teenagers and set ‘em off in the middle of the night. I wasn’t trying to be a little shit, honest to god, but everything that I loved doin’ seemed to cause trouble.”

“And you never grew out of it.” Rick knew kids like Negan- he’d warned Carl off of them lest he start getting into trouble. Now he’d give anything for his son to be able to get into some harmless mischief.

“Sure didn’t. I mellowed a little with age in some ways, but deep down…I was always that same kid.” Negan licked his lips clean of the last of his soup and set the bowl aside. “And here’s the thing, Rick- I wasn’t content to get into trouble alone. No, I always wanted someone by my side, the fuckin’ Thelma to my Louise. I’d have loved to rope a little goody-two-shoes like you into my fun.”

Rick’s mouth twitched into a frown. “Don’t act like you knew who I was back then. I had a brother, that’s all I told you.”

“I know who you are now. I know you were a cop, and I’ve got a feeling you weren’t a dirty one, either. No, you joined up in hopes of makin’ the world a better place, right? Started off green as bean. Probably let teenagers like me off with warnings when you caught them smokin’ pot in the Walmart parking lot because you knew there were worse people out there. And you lived in a little Podunk town in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere, but you probably still saw some shit. Wives getting knocked around by their drunk bastard husbands, teenagers killed by drunk drivers. And some people can brush that shit off, but not you. No, not you- you felt all that shit, because you’re the poor son of a bitch who actually  _cares._ And you were  _sweet_ , a good southern boy with bright eyes and a soft heart, so you were the one delivering the bad news. Telling the parents of that kid whose car wrapped around a telephone pole that  _Ma’am, he didn’t make it, I’m so sorry_.”

Rick’s insides twisted, and he had to drop his gaze, fixing it to the chip in one of the bricks beside Negan’s head. He was right- Rick didn’t have a clue how he knew, but he was right. Shane had always been too gruff, too angry at the injustice of it all when something like that happened, so Rick had always been the one to deliver the hard news.

“And that shit eats away at you, don’t it? Fucking ruins you from the inside out, but you didn’t say shit. You tucked it all away in neat little boxes and came home to your wife and boy like nothing happened, and you laid in bed beside your girl, but you couldn’t sleep. And you never told her.”

Rick’s eyes fluttered closed, guilt and shame and regret filling his chest. All those years with Lori, all the things he’d seen, and he’d kept it locked away inside him, telling himself that it was better that way. He never wanted her to see the world like he did, all of its ugliness and horror laid bare. He’d kept so much from her, and it had driven a wedge between them.

 _Speak_ , she’d pleaded with him.  _Please just talk to me, Rick,_ and he’d kept his mouth shut. Sometimes he’d get frustrated, let something slip, let her glimpse just how much he carried, and the weight of it had scared them both.

“I know you, Rick. You may not want me to, but the fact of it is that all I've got to do all day is sit here, sad as a fuckless fuck on free fuck day. Most interesting part of my day is seeing you. Two years I've been listening to you talk, and I know you thought I wasn't listening, but I was. And piece by piece, I'm startin' to put it all together, the picture of what kind of man you are. You don’t have to tell me everything for me to figure you out.”

Rick didn’t speak. He didn’t want to think about Lori, about everything he’d done wrong in his marriage, everything he regretted. And he certainly didn't want to hear about how far Negan had wormed his way into his psyche.

“What was her name? Your wife?”

Rick’s gaze snapped over to Negan’s again, and it was like a door had slammed closed. Negan could see it in his eyes- he’d pushed too hard, and all of that vulnerability was gone, steel erected in its place.

Negan couldn’t have that. Not here, not anymore. He didn’t want there to be anything standing between himself and Rick. Once upon a time, he may have kept pushing to try and get what he wanted, and it only would have made Rick angry, made him bear his teeth and snap at his throat and then storm away.

Now, he knew what the other man needed to let go.

“Lock the door, deputy. You’re not gonna want an audience for this.”

For a moment, he thought Rick was going to put up a fight. He had that  _look_  on his face, the one that never failed to rile Negan up, but in the end he rose from his chair and turned the lock, back rigid as a board. Negan wasn’t concerned- he knew just how to knock all that tension out of him.

“Did you get what I asked you to, Rick?”

He had a backup plan in case Rick hadn’t managed to get his hands on it, but like the good boy he was, Rick reached into his pocket and drew out a small foil packet that he willingly placed in Negan’s open palm.

“This all you got?”

Rick’s cheeks colored. “I- I didn’t have time in the last couple days. This is all I had.”

Negan relished the confession easily wrung out of the other man- that he’d had this on hand. “That’s alright, darlin’. You just keep lookin’, alright? This is more than enough for what I want to do to you tonight.” He watched the shudder ripple through Rick with dark satisfaction. “Strip for me, Rick.”

There was a moment of heavy pause where Rick held his gaze steadily as if to challenge his demand. Negan waited patiently, confident Rick’s wants would win out of rational thought. He watched as it happened, that shift from the collected, controlled leader to something else, something malleable and soft that Negan could shape in his hands. It still stunned him that Rick came to him like this at all.

Rick’s gaze fell as his hands rose to the buttons of his gray shirt, working slow and deft, not a tremor of nervousness in sight, like this wasn’t the first time Rick was baring himself to Negan. Negan watched hungrily, eating up every sliver of newly exposed skin like a starving man. Beneath his shirt, Rick’s chest was a few shades paler than his forearms, a dusting of greying hair on his chest and just below his navel. He was more muscular than Negan had expected, sturdier beneath his clothes than he looked. Sometimes when Negan looked at him, he still saw that shivering, tear-stained man on his knees, curls drooping into his eyes.

The shirt fell to the floor with a soft whisper of fabric, and immediately Negan’s mind was flooded with filthy thoughts of what he wanted to do to the man in front of him. Perfect little pink nipples, just begging to be pinched until Rick whimpered, his chest just full enough that Negan could imagine him on his back, Negan’s own dick sliding between the soft swells until the head touched those full lips.

Rick didn’t make a show of any of it, nor did he shrink away. Like everything he did, it was matter-of-fact, his belt staying in the loops as he stepped out of his boots and jeans. His boxers were loose and faded-  _probably sleeps in them_ , Negan thought. Rick was still soft when he shed them, and it struck Negan how vulnerable, how beautiful he was like this. Open and perhaps not yet trusting, but here he was, bare and unabashed, looking at Negan expectantly.

“Absolutely fucking gorgeous, Rick.” The praise fell off of his lips before he could think twice of it. “Come here, baby. Let me get you all worked up.”

Rick surged forward, looking like he expected to be kissed, but Negan caught him by the hair, tugging harshly at the roots just to hear the sweet, breathy noise Rick made in response. “Oh, no. We’re diving right into the deep end tonight, Rick.” He kissed the exposed line of Rick’s throat and watched the other man’s adam’s apple bob. “Turn around.”

 _Jesus_ , that was a sight to behold. Rick obeyed instantly, and Negan was presented with the other man’s pert backside. There were inviting dimples right at the base of his spine, and Negan couldn’t help but reach out and grab a handful from one cheek, giving him a squeeze. He heard Rick’s breath hitch, and then, experimentally, gave his ass a sharp slap. Rick made a positively  _delicious_  sound in his throat, like he was trying and failing to bite back a cry of pleasure, and Negan filed his reaction away for later.

“Spread your legs a little wider, Rick- there you go. Perfect.” Rick’s feet shifted apart just enough for Negan to glimpse his balls between his legs. Negan ripped open the packet of lube with his teeth, liberally coating his fingers. He noticed how Rick’s shoulders tensed at the noise and smirked, wasting no time in sliding his fingers down the cleft of Rick’s ass to tease at the tight opening there. He felt it flutter and clench at his touch, and he slid his fingers over him again to allow him time to get used to being touched there.

“You ever done this before, Rick?” The way he’d flinched said no, but then again, he’d had a packet of lube on hand.

“A couple times,” Rick whispered, "not a lot with...with someone." Negan could practically see the blush coloring his cheeks. Negan groaned quietly, eyes fluttering closed as he pictured Rick Grimes alone in his bed, fucking himself on his fingers and trying desperately to stay quiet. He wondered if he touched himself while he did it or if he came just like that.

“Fuck, that’s hot. You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“Contrary to the idea you seem to have of me, I’m not a fucking virgin,” Rick retorted.

“Yeah?” Negan mocked, putting a little pressure on Rick’s entrance. “You ever done this before, Rick? Been naked and at someone else’s mercy? Hoped and prayed that nobody else walked in while they took you apart, piece by fucking piece?” Rick breathed out through his nose and Negan seized his opportunity, one finger sliding slowly in. He was  _tight_ \- tight enough that Negan was glad he’d planned on doing this before sticking his dick into him. Rick’s body trembled from the inside out, and Negan took mercy on him just a little, leaning in and pressing his lips to Rick’s bare shoulder. The effect was instantaneous- Rick relaxed around him at the soft touch, and Negan’s finger slid in fully and then drew back out, the pace slow enough to get him used to having something inside. He laughed when, after a minute, he felt Rick tentatively begin to start pushing back onto his hand.

“You think you’ve got this on lock, huh?” A second finger pushed its was in beside the first, and he heard Rick’s sharp inhale. “Not so fuckin’ tough now, are you? Yeah, it’s gonna be a good, long while before you’re ready to take my dick.”

“I can _\- ahh-!_ ” Rick cried out suddenly when Negan’s fingers made an intentional downward press, rubbing up against his prostate. Whatever Rick was going to say was subsumed by shuddering moans as Negan began fucking him in earnest, angling his fingers  _just_  right so that he could keep drawing those gorgeous sounds.

“What was that, Rick?” Negan taunted, watching with eagerness as Rick grew pliant and flushed, hips eagerly rocking back to meet him. He had to be hard by now, but his hands stayed resolutely on the bars on either side of him.  _Learned his lesson last time._

“Sounds like you’re fucking liking this. Tell me, Rick. Talk to me.”

“Y-yes,” Rick stammered out, and Negan frowned. A third finger pressed in and Rick  _wailed_ , the stretch unfamiliar and the fullness addicting.

“Yes what, Rick?”

“Yes, I- I like it.” He sounded a little distant, and Negan suddenly wanted nothing more than to push him, hear what he sounded like when he was broken and begging for more.

One arm snaked around Rick’s waist, clutching him against the bars and forcing him further back onto his fingers while the other continued to work below, cruelly rubbing firm circles across Rick’s prostate. Rick’s head fell back against the bars, but he barely seemed to register the pain, his lips parted in a constant, breathless moan that began to deteriorate into a cry of near-pained pleasure as Negan’s fingers worked his sensitive spot relentlessly.

“What would the fine folks of Alexandria say if they saw you now, Rick? Naked and fucking impaled on my fingers. Hard as fucking steel for me, unable to touch yourself.” He peered over the shorter man’s shoulder to get an eyeful of Rick’s thick, hard dick hanging proud and needy in the air. “I could keep you like this, you know. Right on the edge until you’re crying for it.”

“Don- _don’t_ ,” Rick gasped, hips shoving back desperately only for Negan to pull them away and change his angle, the pace deep and relentless and torturously meant to avoid the place Rick wanted him the most. A frustrated snarl wrenched out of Rick’s chest, and Negan dug his nails into Rick’s waist where he held him and then raked them across his torso.

“I think you’re forgetting who’s in charge here, Rick,” he warned. His fingers made a slick, obscene noise every time they fucked into Rick, who was beginning to look like he’d been caught in a sudden downpour. Sweat ran down the side of his neck and down his back, pooling at the base of his spine and then spilling over. Each roll of his hips saw the swell of his ass meeting the metal bars of Negan’s cell, likely leaving marks that would bruise tomorrow.

“Not- ‘m not,  _please_ -” Rick’s chest shuddered. “Please, Negan.”

“You want me to make you come like this? Just my fingers up your pretty ass?”

“Yes- yes, I-” Rick swallowed thickly. “I want it. Please,  _please_ , I  _need_ -”

Negan gave him what he needed, growing harder and harder at the sound of Rick’s filthy-sweet pleading that continued breathlessly as Rick clenched down around Negan’s fingers and came, cock jerking and spilling onto the dusty floor. Negan was sure that Rick had no idea that he was still speaking, still pleading for release as his orgasm washed over him in cresting waves. He continued to mercilessly rub over that spot until Rick sobbed and Negan felt him sag where he was holding him. Rick sank to the floor, turning to clutch at the bars again like he needed something, anything to tether him to reality.

The need hit Negan all at once with enough force to rip the air from his lungs. He undid his pants just enough to pull himself out, one hand wrapping around his hard, aching length while the other reached down to cup Rick’s chin and force him to look up at the cock hovering over his face. Rick’s eyes, still hazy, blew wide in realization of what was about to happen, and wasn’t that just  _exquisite_?

They didn’t speak as it happened, the only noise in the room Rick’s labored breathing and the obscene sound of Negan’s hand on his cock. Rick couldn’t seem to look away- mesmerized, maybe horrified of what was happening. On instinct, his lips parted, his face still flushed, naked and looking thoroughly debauched at Negan’s feet, and with that, Negan was gone, grunting out a sound that could have been Rick’s name as he spilled over Rick’s face. He watched with a filthy kind of delight as creamy white splashed across Rick’s cheekbones and the bride of his nose, over his parted lips and down into the white of his beard.

Marked. There was something about it that felt so utterly, primally  _right_  to have claimed Rick in that way. He watched as Rick slowly rose to his feet and wiped his face best he could with his shirt before redressing.  _He’ll have to wash my come off of his clothes- have to race home and wash his face before anyone sees._

The look on his face when Negan had come- equal parts shocked and pleased- was the stuff of wet dreams. He certainly planned on pulling that image out again while he waited for Rick to come limping back to him for more.

“Hurry on home, Rick,” he said dismissively when he noticed the other man lingering hesitantly by the door after he’d redressed. “You don’t need to stay to fucking tuck me in.”

He figured Rick was waiting on his dismissal, still strung out from what they’d done together. Right before Rick turned away, Negan glimpsed his expression in the moonlight glowing just beyond his cell. It was just a fleeting look before Rick was swallowed up by the dark again, but he swore Rick had looked almost disappointed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i could honestly write a whole fic where it's just rick and tara being buddy cops


	7. Deserving

He had to go alone. Scavenging trips were getting rarer and rarer these days as the communities grew more self-sufficient. People typically only went out when there was something specific they needed.

He couldn’t bring himself to ask someone else, so Rick pulled out one of the detailed scouting maps they’d made of the area with the names of shops and their cleared status. A quick scan saw a pharmacy less than ten miles away with ‘nonessential items still stocked’ written beside it- perfect.

He’d have to make an excuse for the detour- something for Judith. Or maybe nobody would notice that he’d slipped away for an hour.

The path to the pharmacy was clear, and Rick made the ride in less time than expected. He tied Millie off to a parking sign out front and walked in, one ear cocked to listen for shuffling feet or groans, but the place was, thankfully, quiet. Not even the dead were there to witness his awkward weave up and down the aisles until he found condoms- long expired- and lube nestled away between the tampons and toothpaste.

While he was there, he snagged a new toothbrush for himself, Judith, and Negan, and grabbed Michonne and full tube of Spearmint Crest, her toothpaste of choice. He tucked them inside his bag along with the lube and rode back home, hoping nobody was any the wiser about where he’d gone.

* * *

“The crops are still dyin’. The Sanctuary was never self-sufficient in the first place, and even now they’re bleedin' us dry.”

Rick pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, feeling a headache forming behind his eyes. “What if they started establishing outposts again? Groups of people could move to more farmable land. The Sanctuary’s secure and they have Eugene- the people that stay will still have ways of contributing.”

“You wanna take a guess how many are willing to leave to be farmers? G’wan.” Daryl folded his arms across his chest.

“You’re too quick to count them out,” Rick argued, looking to Carol for help.

“Ever think maybe you’re too quick to count 'em in?” Daryl countered. “We gonna hold their hands and help ‘em clear out new outposts, too? You gonna stay there and teach ‘em how to farm?”

Rick held Daryl’s gaze evenly. “If I need to. But there are people there that know how to grow things. They had crops there before. Not enough to feed everyone, but it was somethin’. They just need better land.”

“I’m more concerned with feedin’ _us_.”

“Nobody here’s in danger of going hungry. Winter’s coming, and we’re got rations and stockpiles building up,” Carol reasoned. "We've been doing well for ourselves."

“And the people at the Sanctuary are _us_ now.” Rick’s voice was firm and uncompromising. For too long the world had felt divided into us, them, and the dead. Woodbury, Terminus, the Wolves, the Saviors…they were finally in a place where it could be the living versus the dead, and he didn’t want to get back to the point where there were factions and divisions among people.

Daryl shook his head. “’S like I said, Rick. Ain’t no _us_ anymore.”

“It doesn’t have to be like that, Daryl. That’s not what I’m tryin’ to do here.”

“Don’t matter, does it? You’re gonna keep doin’ it anyway.” Daryl shoved aside the flaps of the tent and peered outside. “’M goin’ to sleep. No point in doin’ this shit every night.”

Rick bit his tongue to hold back the frustrated shout in his throat. His head was pounding and he ached everywhere, his arms and shoulders from carrying lumber and his ass and thighs from the night before. Every time he moved, he was flooded with memories of Negan’s fingers buried inside of him, his bare ass smacking into the bars of the cell in his desperation to take them in. He’d woken up tender and caught sight of himself in the mirror after a shower to see red and purple bruises dotted across his backside. He wanted to be home, in bed and asleep with his daughter safely down the hall from him, the sturdy walls of Alexandria giving him peace of mind. Not here, where it seemed no call he made was the right one.

He was tired. He was tried and Carol was talking about possibly clearing one of the old overrun outposts and trying to work the land there to see if his idea was feasible, and as much as he appreciated it, he couldn’t seem to focus.

“Rick.” He blinked over at Carol, who was now standing in front of him. “You getting enough sleep?”

 _No_ , he wanted to say honestly. _No, I haven’t been sleeping because every night that I get home from this place I have to go right to Negan just to get all of this shit off my chest. No, I haven’t been sleeping right because I know what I’m doing with him is killing me and that if anyone found out, they’d eviscerate me, and I’d deserve it._

“Long days,” he said instead, dodging Carol’s entirely too perceptive gaze. “You know how it goes.”

Long days and even longer nights spent with the devil on his shoulder whispering sweet-nothings into his ear, and as much as he loathed himself for it, all Rick wanted was to hear that honey-dipped voice _now_.

He lied and told Carol that he was going to get some sleep- _a full night’s rest_ , as if that was an option for him.

He rode home with only one thing on his mind, and when he got to Alexandria, he made no detours before descending the steps to the cell.

* * *

Something was wrong.

Negan’s come was splashed across his chest, claiming him. He’d spent himself at the man’s command, one hand on his cock while Negan enjoyed the show. He should be relieved- he’d gotten what he wanted, what he’d come for. He should want to go home.

He couldn’t get off his knees.

Negan had already tucked himself away and sprawled out on his bed again, long legs crossed at the ankle. He was the picture of poise given the circumstances, and that should have made Rick want to throttle him. Should have made him pick up the ruined tatters of his dignity off the floor and try to get in the last word before he left. Instead, his chest felt hollow and heavy all at once, his leaden limbs tethering him to the ground.

He needed something. He didn’t know what, he didn’t know why, but he needed something to allow him to stand. Negan was looking at him now, curious and amused, and Rick should have been embarrassed but suddenly all he craved was Negan’s attention.

“The fuck are you doin’, Grimes? You got yours, I got mine, everything’s square. Go home to your little girl.”

The guilt and shame hit him then, hard and sudden as a car crash, and he was on his feet before Negan could say anything more. He threw on his shirt without cleaning himself up, and if Negan had anything else to say, Rick didn’t hear him.

* * *

Back at home, he only let himself shower after he’d checked on Judith. He was sticky and sweat-sodden and soaked in shame, but he wouldn’t let himself neglect her any longer. Not because of his own weakness.

She was fine, of course. Everything at home was fine, so he should have been as well.

He broke down in the shower, shocked at how fast it came on. One moment he was scrubbing himself clean, and the next he was huddled in a heap on the floor beneath the spray, quiet sobs wracking his frame.

It used to happen a lot after Carl- sudden tears that he couldn’t control, days where he couldn’t get out of bed. But this was something different, like the tide dragging up all the skeletons from its depths.

It hit him in waves- the guilt over what he was doing, over Carl, over Maggie and Glenn and Abraham and everyone they’d lost during the war. Negan’s voice rang in his ears, repeating all of the things he’d said in a cruel monotone.

_You little whore. Think of what they’d say if they knew._

He wasn’t fit to lead. Why they kept turning to him, he couldn’t fathom.

_On your knees for me, hanging on every fucking word. You don’t take orders from anyone but me, do you?_

Maybe they were punishing him. The only reason he didn’t give up leadership wholly to Michonne was because he knew how big a burden it was and he didn’t want her to have to bear its weight alone.

 _Nobody else sees you, do they, Rick? Not like me_. _Nobody else wants to see how far down the rabbit hole you’ve gone. They don’t want to admit they kept you backed up to the edge._

He didn’t know what he was doing anymore. All he wanted was to be touched, to be seen, and the only person who gave that to him was-

_Me. I see you, Rick. I can see all the way down to the fucked-up core of you, and you know what? I fucking like it._

Negan was giving it to him, and still he wanted _more_. He didn’t know what that looked like, but there was something in him that still ached, unfulfilled, whenever he left after their trysts. Something to calm the snarling beast in his chest, something to make him feel whole for just a moment.

He leaned his head back against the shower wall, letting the water patter over his face like rain, and let himself think about Negan- how his hands smoothed over his skin, the all-encompassing kisses, the fingers stroking through his hair.

_Did so good, Rick. Did so well for me, baby._

He shouldn’t want that- not from Negan. Not when he didn’t _deserve_ it. He’d done nothing to earn anyone’s praise or respect.

He thought of the rough nips to his lower lip that left him bruised, the soreness in his jaw and thighs, the feeling of Negan’s nails raking over his skin and wondered how it would feel if he dug in deeper, if he left marks. If he bit down and broke skin, if he bent Rick over and doubled his belt in his hands. Imagined filthy, degrading words purred in his ear as he took it- Negan had said them enough that it made them easy to conjure up _. Slut. Whore. Should be ashamed. What would they say if they knew? If they saw you now?_

It didn’t make him feel better, but it felt _right_ \- it felt like justice being served.

Maybe that was what all of it was- punishment. He’d never served his sentence for how many people had been hurt or killed during the war. _His_ people, people he loved and would give his life to protect. Maggie was punishing him by avoiding Alexandria, Daryl was punishing him by fighting him on every little thing-

_You’re insane. You’re losin’ your damn mind. Maggie doesn’t want to be here because the man who killed her husband lives within the walls, protected. Daryl doesn’t trust the Saviors, but when has he ever trusted new people? None of this is about you. They’re taking care of themselves. They shouldn’t have to worry about how it’s affecting you._

Rick’s nails raked down his bare thigh, pressing into the places Negan had already clawed him up. His nails were too blunt to do more than raise thin lines atop the existing pink ones, but it helped- brought everything into sharp focus, the fog lifting.

Back in his bedroom, he dug through the back of his closet until his hands met smooth leather, thick and worn. To this day, he wasn’t sure why he kept it. Maybe he’d felt that subconscious draw to the man even then. He was positive nobody noticed that it had disappeared. In the post-war shuffle from place to place and all the rebuilding, so many things had gotten misplaced. It made sense that nobody was too worried about the jacket of the man about to be thrown in a cell.

Rick unzipped the left pocket and reached inside, drawing out the neatly folded crimson fabric. He didn’t know if Negan would go for it- for all he knew, the scarf may have held some deeper meaning for him. He could be furious that Rick was touching it, get angry at the suggestion of using it for what Rick wanted.

If Rick was wiser, had more self-preservation, he wouldn’t want it at all. It was only a handful of times now that he’d gone to Negan, and that wasn’t nearly enough to forge trust between them.

Rick tucked the scarf away in his bedside table and decided that he didn’t care.

* * *

The next day, when Rick delivered Negan’s dinner, he kept reaching back to his left pocket and making sure the scarf was still there. And of course Negan noticed.

“Damn, Rick. You want your ass felt up so bad you can just bring it over here. Didn’t realize you couldn’t wait until after supper.”

Rick’s hands twitched back to his lap. “Didn’t realize you were gonna take so long,” he volleyed back. He couldn’t seem to help responding whenever Negan went to rile him up, and he swore Negan _liked_ it like that.

“So what’s on the dessert menu tonight, deputy? Peaches and cream?” Negan licked his lips slowly, and Rick felt his face grow warm and his cock twitch in his jeans. “You got something for me in that back pocket, or do you just have an itch for me to scratch?”

Eyes on the floor, Rick pulled out the scarf, running his thumb along the folded seam of the fabric. He crossed the room and placed it in Negan’s outstretched palm, expecting more than the curious gaze he was met with.

“Trip down memory lane, huh?” Negan unfolded the scarf and smoothed the fabric between his hands, head tilted up at Rick. “Why’d you bring me this, Rick? You wanna get a little _freaky_? Blindfold you? Gag you so nobody hears you screamin’ my name?”

Rick swallowed hard, fingers twitching against his front pocket. “Tie me.”

Neither he nor Negan spoke when he drew out the key to Negan’s cell, and the heavy clunk of the door unlocking thudded in Rick’s chest alongside his heart. He closed them in and tucked the key back into his pocket, meeting Negan’s eyes without bars between them. He’d been on his knees for this man, had kissed him and let him touch him all over, but somehow it felt far more intimate, far more _dangerous_ to simply stand here on equal ground.

 _It isn’t trust_ , Rick insisted to himself. _I’m not trusting him not to run because I have faith in him. I’m trusting him not to run because we both know he won’t get more than a dozen yards outside this cell before he’s either shot on sight or dragged back in here._

Still, turning his back to Negan and placing his hands on the bars and breathing out, shaky and rough, felt like something akin to trust.

“Tie me to the bars,” Rick whispered. “And do what you want.”

“You’ve lost your fucking mind,” Negan breathed with a laugh, and then when Rick didn’t respond, “what the fuck makes you think I’m not gonna go running out of here?”

Rick’s eyes cut over his shoulder, a warning. “Because you’re smart enough to know that the second you step out that door, you’re a dead man.”

Negan chuckled and pressed himself against Rick from behind, letting him feel the thick press of his cock against his ass. “What if I don’t care about that?”

Rick straightened and turned, back against the bars, mirthless smile on his face. He gestured toward the cracked cell door, calling his bluff. “Go on, then.”

Negan’s jaw clicked. “I’d fuck you before I left. Tie you up and have my way with you and leave you here for them to find. Let you explain your way out of that.”

“I think they’d draw a different conclusion.”

Negan’s eyes flashed. “And you wouldn’t tell ‘em the truth? Clear my good name?”

“After you left me here? No, I wouldn’t.” He doubted that was the truth- he was sure that the guilt would wring him dry and he'd come clean, but Negan didn't need to know that. 

It was quiet for a long moment and then Negan whistled, shaking his head as he did. “Fuck. That’s cold, Rick. A man’s got nothin’ let but his reputation these days.” He tossed the scarf aside among the books piled near his bed, and Rick frowned.

“I asked you to-”

Negan was against him in the blink of an eye, hips to hips and chest to chest, legs bracketing Rick’s shorter ones. There was a playful sort of menace dancing across his face. “You don’t _ask_ me to do anything. Have you forgotten who’s in charge of this shit, Rick? You don’t make requests. You tell me yes or no. That’s it.”

Frustrated, Rick raised his chin to look the taller man in the eye and insisted. “I need it.”

Negan sorted. “Like hell you do. Nah, Rick, see, I’m not doing that to you. Not yet. You wanna know why?" Rick stayed silent, jaw clenched in frustration. "Because you haven’t fucking _earned_ it. You come in here thinking I’m gonna tie you up when you can’t trust me to stay put? Jesus, Rick, have you lost your fucking mind?”

Rick blinked hard, disoriented. “I…” What could he say? Negan was right- he _had_ lost his fucking mind.

“It’s okay, though, baby,” Negan cooed, running one finger along Rick’s jawline. “I’m still gonna take good care of you. I’m gonna earn your trust piece by piece, and you know what? I think that scares you more than anything I can do to you in here.” He kissed Rick’s cheek with alarming gentleness before pulling back to whisper in his ear. “How do you want it tonight, Rick?”

Frustration rose in Rick’s chest and bubbled over, teeth snapping against Negan’s throat where the scar was colored silver in the low light. “Already told you how I want it.”

Negan’s eyes hardened. “No.”

“I need it, Negan.”

Hands tightened on Rick’s hips. “No, Rick.”

“Please,” Rick breathed, feeling ragged with the need to be taken somewhere far, far out of his own mind. “Please, _please_ , Negan, I need-”

The world shifted as Negan turned him roughly in his arms. Rick faced out toward the door, fingers tight around the bars and Negan’s hand on the back of his neck.

“I know what you need, Rick.” With his free hand, Negan reached around Rick’s waist to undo his belt and unzip his jeans, shoving them ungracefully down his thighs along with his underwear. The same hand wandered down from the small of Rick’s back to the curve of his ass where it met his thigh, down then up again, leaving Rick wondering what would happen next.

In hindsight, he should have seen it coming. The hand withdrew only to come back down _hard_ on his backside, and he yelped in shock, the sound echoing in the small room. The spot where Negan had struck him stung, warmer than the rest of him, and there was a pause.

“Yes or no?”

Rick hung his head, breathing out slowly. Between his legs, his cock throbbed, hard and already leaking. “Yes,” he whispered, and he closed his eyes in anticipation.

The next blow was harder than the first, hard enough that it had to have hurt Negan, too. Rick took it in stride, breathing out hard through the sting. It became a rhythm between them- the crack of Negan’s palm on Rick’s bare ass, Rick breathing out heavily, then crying out quietly when the slaps continued.

“You’re fucking loving this, aren’t you? Dirty fucking bastard.” Rick gasped when Negan struck him across the same spot twice, skin burning and eyes watering. “This is what you needed, isn’t it, Rick? Needed someone to put you in your fucking place.”

The blows kept coming, the sensation painful and strangely cathartic, each one driving him further and further away from rational thought and the problems he had outside of this cell. Negan was still talking, babbling on about how he looked, how this was where he belonged, but Rick barely heard him, lost in the burning pleasure that was close to overtaking him.

“This is what you needed, isn’t it, baby?”

 _Yes_ , Rick thought frantically, _this is what I needed._

“Look so fucking beautiful like this, Rick, bent over for me with your ass spanked red. Fuck, you’ll feel me here for days. You just take it and take it, don’t you? So fucking good for me.”

Rick shivered and gasped and then the sensation peaked, warmth spreading through him as he came untouched, spilling over the floor. It surprised him that he could do it at all- he never had, but then again, he’d never done this before. Never needed it for the reasons he did tonight. He faintly heard Negan swearing behind him, heard the rustle of clothing over the blood rushing in his ears, felt wet warmth splash across his lower back and drip down his burning backside. He felt his knees buckle as the high began to ebb out of him, but strong arms caught him around the middle, holding him up and tugging him back until he was being lowered onto the unmade bed in the corner of the cell.

Negan was shushing him, running long fingers gently through his hair and massaging his scalp. One hand cupped his flushed cheek and Rick was shocked to feel him wipe away tears with him thumb. “Hey. Hey, you’re alright, Rick. Don’t fucking cry.”

He didn’t remember the tears coming and couldn’t fathom why they were there. Undone and vulnerable, he felt like he’d woken in the middle of the woods without any indication of how he’d gotten there or the way home. Negan was _comforting_ him- stroking the side of his face and saying things Rick had only dreamed of hearing.

“You did so good for me, Rick. Took it like a fucking champ.”

Rick’s eyelashes fluttered, tears clinging heavily to him and then spilling down his cheeks. _I don’t deserve it_ , he thought miserably, and then Negan’s lips pressed to his forehead and he jerked away, shocked and horrified by his own weakness. He snatched his jeans off the floor and pulled them on hastily, eyes trained on the floor.

“Rick- _Rick_. What the fuck are you doing? You’re a goddamned mess, take a fucking second and-”

“Don’t,” Rick said, voice hollow. “I need to go.”

“ _Rick_.”

The cell door closed with a metallic clang, and Rick pulled it again to be sure the lock was in place before he fled back up the stairs. He _was_ a mess, he could feel it- come sticky and drying under his jeans, sweat making his shirt cling to him, hair mussed and face flushed and damp with tears. He should be ashamed- he _was_ ashamed, he just wished it was enough to get him to stop coming to Negan after long days.

He lay in bed for hours that night, tossing and turning beneath heavy blankets tucked up to his chin, replaying the night’s events in his head over and over again, a song stuck on loop. He kept going back to the kindness Negan had showed him, the soft touches and praise that he craved like air in his lungs. He wanted _more_ , wanted it so badly that he ached for it. He thought of Negan’s lips on his forehead and _wanted_ , wanted kisses trailed down his face, his chest, wanted someone to touch him like he wasn’t the broken, hollowed-out mess that he felt like he was.

Maybe that was why he went to Negan. The man never treated him like someone to follow, never claimed to love him. That was what he deserved- someone who saw him for what he was, someone who wouldn’t lie to him and tell him he was worthy or strong or capable. Negan was someone who knew how to break him like he deserved to be broken, and Rick couldn’t fathom why Negan had chosen now, at his least deserving, to show him kindness.


	8. Mutual

Hershel was a beautiful, happy little boy. Rick considered it no small mercy that Maggie allowed him to visit the Hilltop, that she still treated him with all the love she always had. Sitting with her on the balcony of the old plantation, Hershel perched on his knee and giggling while Rick bounced him, he could almost believe that things were okay.

“You’re good with him,” Maggie smiled fondly, leaning in from her seat to plant a kiss on Hershel’s forehead. “I almost forgot what it’s like seein' you with a baby.”

Rick caught the sadness, the wistfulness in her voice, and tried not to let his own show. “Almost forgot what it felt like. Judith’s growin’ so fast I can hardly keep up. She’ll be tryin’ to run the place before I know it.” He swallowed and swallowed against the lump in his throat that rose at the thought, focusing his attention on the little boy on his knee. He _looked_ like Glenn, the resemblance more and more striking every time Rick saw him. He didn’t know if Maggie would appreciate him saying so given the circumstances, and the thought made him ache. Years ago, when Judith was around Hershel’s age, Maggie had told him that Judith was starting to look like Lori, and the sentiment had comforted him. Especially now when he looked at his daughter, it was a relief to see Lori’s face reflected in hers, one last piece of her still thriving in this world.

Hershel cooed and reached up for Rick, trying to cuddle closer, and he could only smile and pull the child into his arms, letting him rest against his chest and tug lightly at his long beard. “He’s absolutely perfect, Maggie,” he murmured.

“He is,” she agreed. “He’s my everything.”

“How’re things goin’ here? Since Gregory?” He was careful to keep his voice light and neutral. Maggie’s execution of Gregory had come as a shock, and while Rick was trying to fight against the new norm of killing people that threatened the peace, he couldn’t fault Maggie for it. Not when her children had been caught in the middle of Gregory’s scheming.

“It’s been quiet. Earl’s sober and got the plow fixed up. We’re doin’ well here.” She smiled to herself. “Aaron comes by once a week to take Jesus’s martial arts class for kids. It’s sweet. I’d say he’s sweet on him, but…”

Rick knew the _but:_  Eric. Aaron was so young- Rick was sure that one day his grief would fade into the background of his mind and allow him to move on with someone new, but things like that took time. He chanced a glance at Maggie’s face and the grief on her face drew the words right out of his mouth.

“I can’t tell you it goes away,” he said quietly, reaching out with the hand that wasn’t cradling Hershel to intertwine with Maggie’s. “I can’t tell you that it’s ever gonna be easy to think about him. I still think about him every day. About everything he did for me, for all of us. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him, and that’s somethin’ I’ve gotta live with.” Maggie’s head bowed, eyes downcast like she couldn’t bear to let Rick see her tears, and in return he squeezed her hand and let his own spill silently. “I know how much you loved him, Maggie. How much you still do. I can’t tell you how sorry I am for everything you’ve lost. All I can promise you is that I’m gonna try to make this world a better place for your son.” Rick breathed in a shaky breath of Hershel’s sweet, powdery scent. “He deserved to meet his dad. Glenn deserved to be here for all of this.”

“Guess it’s not about deservin’ things anymore,” Maggie replied, her voice surprisingly even despite the shine of tears in her eyes. “There’s a lot of people who deserve to be here. Lot of people who don’t. Guess that’s the way it’s always been.” She wiped her eyes hastily and rose to her feet, gathering a dozing Hershel into her arms and humming as she set him in his playpen to nap. When she turned back to Rick, her eyes were glossy, but her face was resolute. “I understand why you did what you did, Rick. Don’t mean I agree with it, and I know you never asked me to. And I’m not gonna pretend that me wantin’ him dead is for Glenn, because it’s not. It’s for me. I’d rather him be in the ground because I hate the idea of him still livin’ when so many good people aren’t. Because of him.”

“I know,” Rick whispered, and he had to force himself to keep his eyes on Maggie and not drop them in shame. “I know that.”

“I was angry with you for a long time. Angry with Michonne and Aaron and everyone that stood by your decision. And I didn’t want to be, because I knew, I _knew_ that you were all hurting just as much as I was. I don’t ever want you to think I didn’t see what was happening to you after Carl.”

Rick wondered if it would ever stop hurting to hear his name, if that overwhelming sense of failure would ever lessen. He didn’t know that he wanted it to.

“It would have been easy for you to blame Negan. To blame Siddiq. But you didn’t. You spared Negan and you made Siddiq a part of your family, and I just…I want you to know that I see that. It took me a long time, and I’m still workin’ on it, but I understand.”

It was more than he deserved, and he very nearly told her as much. Sitting in front of her now, it seemed laughable to think that what he was doing with Negan would stay a secret. The shame of it nearly wrenched the confession out of him like a sinner in church.

Instead, he found himself at Glenn’s grave. It was different now- the crude wooden cross that had marked it before had been replaced by an inscribed metal plaque set into the earth, grass blooming around it. _Glenn Rhee. Beloved Husband and Father._ A similar one rested atop the grave beside it, engraved with Abraham’s name, and then Sasha’s beside his. The sun was setting over the trees in the distance, the sky painted pink and orange, and for once, Rick was glad he was alone.

“I’m sorry,” he began, and immediately it felt like ash in his mouth, the sheer inadequacy of it hitting him like a blow to the chest. He hung his head, one hand still buried in the grass sprouting from the grave. “I don’t know where you are now. What any of you believed- things like that never seemed to matter anymore. I like to think you’re together, somewhere better than this, but I never really knew what I believed, either.” He wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeve, throat thick. “You deserved to be here. To raise your son, to grow old with Maggie. If you could see her now- how strong she is, how good a mother…but she’s hurting. She’s hurting and I- I wish it was me. God, I fucking wish it had been me.”

Rick crumpled into himself, voice shaking. “You saved me, right at the beginning. And I couldn’t save you. I-I couldn’t…I wish I had. I don’t deserve to be here, not when people like you can’t be. I’m sorry. I can’t make it right. I’m tryin’, but…I don’t know how anymore. You were so…so _good_ , better than me, and I- I needed that. I keep tryin' to think about what you would do. What you did with Nicholas, how you spared him. How you never killed, not until-” his voice cracked, the memory of Glenn’s blood-spattered, shaken face after that night at the outpost. Two years into the end of the world, and that was the first time he’d killed a human being. “You shouldn’t have had to. At the very least, you should have died without blood on your hands. And maybe it’s wrong of me to keep him alive. Maybe what you would have wanted was for Maggie to be at peace knowing he’s gone. Maybe I’m being the dumbass you knew I was.” He had to crack a smile through his tears at that. “I don’t know what I’m doing. Same as always, right? I’m goin’ with my gut and hopin’ for the best. I wish you were here to tell me when I was fucking things up. Feel like that’s all I can do anymore.”

The cemetery was growing dark, the last of the dying light disappearing behind the wall as the sky dimmed to navy. Rick sniffed hard and traced Glenn’s name with his fingertip, smiling sadly. “Your little boy’s beautiful. Gonna be just as kind and strong as his dad, I know it. Maggie wouldn’t raise him to be any other way.”

He sat there as the stars began to light up overhead, one by one until they were the only light in the sea of inky black.

* * *

He couldn’t bring himself to sleep at the Hilltop, even when Maggie tried to insist.

“Really need to get home. I always feel awful when I can’t at least tuck Judith in for the night.”

And it was true- the days that he got home late at night when his daughter was already soundly asleep made him ache with guilt and longing. It reminded him too much of the days when he’d work late at the station and come home to find Lori and Carl sleeping, dinner packed away in the fridge, a plate made up for him. It was always those nights that he considered finding a different job, one with regular hours so that he could be home with them by six every evening, have weekends off to spend with his family.

Judith was waiting for him on the front porch with Anne when he got home. The first creak of his foot on the steps, and Judith’s head turned to him, long hair flying and painting abandoned as she raced over to him, arms outstretched.

“Daddy!”

Rick swept her into his arms, burying his face into her shoulder and barely needing to hold her up for how she clung to him like a koala. “Hey, sweet pea. Looks like you and Annie had a fun day.” Rick grinned over Judith’s shoulder at Anne, who promptly flipped him off with a paint-stained finger for using Judith’s nickname for her.

“Watch yourself, Grimes,” she warned as she began packing away her and Judith’s paint and blowing out the candles that had lit their workspace. “Your name’s got a lot of potential for nicknames.”

“Sticks ‘n stones,” Rick volleyed back. “Thanks for watchin’ her. I know how much she loves painting with you.”

Anne waved him off. “It’s nothing. I always liked children. Reminds me of teaching, only I don’t have to assign grades.” She ruffled Judith’s curls on her way down the steps. “I’ll see you soon, chickadee.”

“Bye, Annie!” Judith crowed, the last reserves of her wakefulness going with her. She snuggled against Rick’s shoulder, mumbling something about her painting and chickens while Rick carried her inside and upstairs to her bedroom. Rick helped her into pajamas and washed the paint off her hands and face best he could- there was some dried into her hair, but neither of them were up for a bath tonight. In fact, she was already nodding off when Rick want to search for a book to read, eyelashes fluttering heavily.

He got two pages into a story about frogs before she was out like a light. Rick was thankful that he didn’t feel the pull toward Negan tonight, but seeing Maggie with Hershel and tucking Judith into bed left him morose in a way that drew him outside nonetheless, his footsteps walking a well-worn path toward the back of the church. He almost didn’t realize what he was doing until he was there, curling up on the ground in a way that he hadn’t in months.

When they were first able to return to Alexandria, he found himself at Carl’s grave more often than not- daily visits in the early morning before anyone else woke and expected something of him, late at night when everyone had fallen asleep. He didn’t like crying in front of Judith, so he cried here, lying in the dirt of his son’s grave with his heart so heavy it felt like it would fall right out of his chest and sink into the earth to be buried with the boy. He cried like he hadn’t since Lori, and more than once Michonne or Gabriel or Aaron had found him there in the morning.

 _I’ll just be here for a minute_ , he told himself.

* * *

Gentle hands roused him from sleep, Gabriel’s voice tired and regretful.

“Come on, Rick. You ought to get home before Judith wakes up.”

It was still dark out, but there was a promise of sunrise over the horizon, the lightening of the sky closest to the earth. He rose from the ground like an old man, like the dead: aching and slow, his back protesting his choice of bed.

“’M sorry,” he mumbled to Gabriel, feeling sad and foolish and _weak_.

When he got home, he didn’t bother to climb the stairs to his bed, just collapsed bodily on the couch. A half hour later, Judith’s footsteps could be heard from upstairs, and he hadn’t slept a wink.

* * *

It was frustrating, being the chump with his dick in his hand waiting around for Rick to grace him with his mopey presence again. If Rick were someone else, Negan may have though that it was all a part of a larger mind game- driving him insane waiting on the next time he may or may not get someone to warm his dick.

But it was Rick. Guilt-ridden, sad-eyed, barely-holding-his-shit-together _Rick_ , and Negan knew better than to believe that Rick had enough space in his scattered brain to play mind games with him. That was, admittedly, part of his charm- he was so goddamned sincere. Sure, he tried to cover up all that bleeding-hearted sorrow beneath a stony face, but anyone who looked for more than a second would be able to see it through all the cracks.

And maybe that’s why Negan shouldn’t have touched him at all. He was the only one looking, sure, but that meant he _knew_ just how close Rick was to shattering.

_I always knew he was too goddamn soft for this shit, and I was right. He’s like Humpty-fucking-Dumpty up on that wall. Wonder how many times he’s fallen off._

Familiar footsteps jerked him straight out of his thoughts, and Negan had to resist the urge to press himself against the bars like an eager dog waiting for his master to come home. _Fucking whipped_ , he admonished himself, but that didn’t stop the way his heartbeat sped up when Rick stepped into the room, soft as a cloud in faded powder blue. Sometimes he wondered if his eagerness was obvious to Rick- he felt like it was all but tattooed across his forehead. Maybe Rick chalked it up to hunger. Admittedly, today’s breakfast smelled delicious.

“ _There’s_ my fucking wake-up call! And room service to boot. Goddamn, this place has everything. I may just stay the weekend.” Negan grinned, his mood only slightly diminished by how weary Rick looked.

“Mornin’, Negan.” Rick sat the tray on the floor by the cell, same place every time, and Negan plopped down cross-legged in front of it, immediately digging in. He never noticed that he was hungry until Rick came to call, but the smell of pancakes and sausage had his stomach growling. “You sleep alright? You’re up awful early.”

Negan took a generous bite out of a sausage patty- for once not overcooked and blackened on one side- and shrugged. “I sleep whenever I drop these days. All those afternoon naps keep me awake.” There was an honest-to-god pat of butter atop his pancakes, melting steadily, and he felt his mouth water. “Mark this down as shit I never thought I’d see again. Butter? Goddamn, Grimes, you know how to treat a man right. Keep this up and I may just put a ring on it.” He smiled winsomely up at Rick just to watch the pretty pink flush that climbed the man’s cheeks.

“Haven’t come across any cows yet, but we caught a few wild goats a month back. Took some figurin’ out, but we’ve got dairy again.”

“Guess cows are too fuckin’ slow to have made it this far. Deadies probably latch onto them and have themselves a steak dinner.” He groaned a tad more obscenely than what was entirely necessary. “Goddamn, what I wouldn’t give for a steak. Medium-rare ‘n bloody, side of mashed potatoes… _mmm_ , Rick. If you ever change your mind and execute me, that’s my last meal request.”

It was a mistake- Rick jerked and blanched, face twisting into a grimace. Negan watched him grow closed off, gates snapping shut. “I’m not _changin’ my mind_. There’s a reason you’re still alive, and I- is that really what you think? That I’m just gonna- gonna fucking snap one day and kill you?”

“Calm your sweet, fuckable tits, Rick. I was _joking_. I know you’ve got the sense of humor of a goddamned brick, but surely you’ve heard of a joke before.” Negan’s face softened, just slightly, regret trickling in. “I’m sorry, alright? Hey- I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that, and I know it. I know that’s not who you are. C’mon, darlin’, sit back down. Talk to me a while. Best part of my day is seein’ your pretty face.”

And just like that, Rick melted like butter and sank back into his seat, looking wary, and Negan basked in the small victory. Rick always had to be coaxed into letting his guard down when it came to Negan, but he considered the effort well worth it. It wasn’t like he had anything else to occupy his time.

“Alright,” Rick conceded. “I’m here. I’ll give you-” he glanced at his watch, “until eight-thirty. That’s thirteen minutes.”

“Not the best way to make a man feel wanted, Rick, but I’ll take what I can get from you. So fill me in- how’s the kiddo, how’s the bridge, how’s the new world order according to Rick Grimes?” He sat back and finished up his sausage, the picture of ease- or at least he hoped so.

Rick shrugged, face as stony as ever. “Been alright. Bridge is comin’ along well enough, Judith’s doin’ well. Gets up earlier than me some mornings, and that’s sayin’ something.”

“Bet she keeps you on your toes, old man.”

Rick made a sound, and for a second Negan thought he was choking, only to be shocked into silence when he realize that had earned him an actual, honest-to-god _laugh_. “You’re one to talk. You’re lookin’ pretty gray lately.” Rick rubbed his own silvery beard mockingly, and Negan had to grin in return.

“I bet I wear it well. Aging like George fuckin’ Clooney.” His tongue darted out just so he could watch Rick’s eyes follow it. “Obviously _you_ don’t mind, or you wouldn’t be on my dick. Which, as you’ve noticed, works just fucking fine.”

Rick’s cheeks were that gorgeous shade of dusky pink that Negan adored, but he wasn’t staring at his boots or the wall for once. Those pretty blues were locked straight on Negan when he replied with, “I haven’t been _on_ your dick yet.”

Negan’s grin grew so wide it hurt. “You wanna be? Oh, Ricky-boy, I knew it was only a matter of time before my fingers wouldn’t be enough and you were begging me to split you on my dick.” There was a flash of unease in Rick’s eyes at that, and Negan immediately changed his approach.

“I’ll make you feel so fucking _good_ , Rick. I’ll take you straight up to the moon, rock your fucking world and leave you wantin’ more. Make you come like you haven’t in _years_. I bet you’ve thought about it, haven’t you, baby? Yeah, you have- laying in your bed alone, fingers buried deep, trying to imagine how it’ll feel to have me inside you.” Negan licked his lips, his cock already twitching at the barrage of filthy images he’d conjured in his head. Rick looked positively scarlet, the color disappearing down into the collar of his t-shirt. “You won’t fucking regret it.”

Negan saw the war being waged behind Rick’s eyes, the constant battle of desire versus sanity he had to fight whenever he came here, and suddenly Negan saw the rest of him, too- saw the dark circles beneath his eyes and the slump of his shoulders, and he wondered for what must have been the thousandth time if he should be playing this game with Rick at all.

_He’s fragile, asshole. Something’s going on that you’ve only scratched the surface of, and you may not want to be the one to break through to the mess inside._

“I…” Rick began, mouth opening and closing, and Negan, for once, took mercy on him.

“Not right now, obviously. You’ve got shit to do, I’ve got a breakfast to finish, and we must have used up most of our thirteen minutes. You may be a two-pump-chump, but I’m gonna need a little more time to stick my dick into you. And, no offence, Rick, but you look fucking tired.” Rick’s shoulders tensed and rose like he couldn’t stand to show weakness, even to someone locked up behind bars, and Negan felt a pulse of empathy for the weary man across from him. “I ain’t goin’ anywhere, honey. You’ve seen to that. Come back when you don’t look like you’re half in the grave.”

Rick flinched, and Negan internally cursed himself. It seemed he was always, always putting his foot in his mouth when it came to Rick. He barely held back a frustrated groan when Rick bid him a curt goodbye and left him alone again

This was by far the worst part of his day- the long, endless stretch of hours between Rick’s breakfast delivery in the morning and when he came to visit at night. It had been even worse the first winter, when it got darker earlier and earlier in the day and Negan had begun panicking thinking that Rick wasn’t coming at all.

It gutted him, but that was his worst fear: that one day Rick would leave and never return. Negan would wait and wait, longing to hear those stupid boots coming down the stairs, and they’d never come. And eventually when someone remembered they’d bring him a meal and dodge his eyes and say nothing when he demanded to know where Rick was. But he’d _know_.

He didn’t know how it happened, but he knew when it first hit him. Day three-hundred and ninety-eight. Over a year into his captivity, and for the first time in a long time Gabriel had come to drop off his meal. He was in and out in less than a minute, and for some reason that Negan still didn’t understand, it got under his skin, so he waited. And when each of his meals that day and the next were delivered by Gabriel or other various Alexandrians who ignored him when he asked where the hell Rick was, he started panicking.

 _He’s dead_ , he’d thought. _Rick’s fucking dead and I’m fucking stuck in here and nobody else gives half a shit about me._

He hadn’t slept that night, and when Rick came down the next morning with a bowl of oatmeal and a mildly recovered cold Negan had been overcome with a sense of relief so strong it nearly knocked him off his feet. And that was when he knew he was in some deep shit.

He didn’t put words to it, not ever, but it was always there now, surfacing in the way his heart raced when Rick smiled, when he heard the man’s footsteps, when he listened to his voice.

So Negan liked him. It wasn’t exactly _news_ \- he’d always had a soft spot for Rick, the first person that had stepped up and pissed all over his territory, daring to step toe-to-toe with him and not back down. He was handsome, he was smart, and he was strong in ways that Negan never expected from him. So yeah, he liked him. But this felt like something different.

Negan heaved a sigh and glared lifelessly at the stack of half-finished books piled by his bedside: Great Expectations, Gulliver’s Travels, IT, Dracula, I Am Legend, and one particularly saucy paperback titled _The Secret Cowboy_ that he’d gotten after asking Rick to bring him some jerk-off material. He’d been thinking more along the lines of Playboy, but Saint Rick had outright refused. There were a lot of things Rick turned him down for- he’d requested a pencil and paper ages ago to write or draw or play fucking tic-tac-toe with himself, and in return he’d gotten a pad yellow paper and a blue crayon. “Pencil’s a weapon,” Rick had told him. “I’ve also got a red one if you’d rather have that.”

In the end, there were only so many crossword puzzles and sudoku books he could finish before losing his sanity, and he had a feeling he was reaching his limit.

Rick wouldn’t be back for ages even if he did come home from the bridge camp tonight. It was still early- Negan sprawled out on the bed and closed his eyes, replaying his conversation with Rick over in his head, lingering on the pink of his cheeks, the way it disappeared into his collar. It went all the way down his chest, and it gave him a thrill to know something so intimate about Rick.

His cock stiffened at the thought of Rick, and he slid a hand down his stomach to the front of his pants, where he grabbed ahold of himself and squeezed. Eight-thirty, that was what Rick had said. That seemed as good a time as any to get off.

Not like he had anything better to do.

* * *

Rick graced Negan with his presence later that evening, hair wet and smelling of soap. Fresh out of the shower, and what Negan wouldn’t give to stand under the warm water with him.

“Evenin’. Heard you already ate.” Rick didn’t bother to pull out his chair- a good sign. It was a sign that he was here to do more than shoot the shit.

“Sure did. Some kind of veggie soup. I never was big on rabbit food, but it wasn’t half bad. Guess you weren’t the head chef tonight.” Negan patted his belly and grinned, and Rick brushed off his teasing with ease. “Brushed my teeth and everything. I’m ready for daddy Rick to tuck me in.”

“Say that shit again and I’ll leave,” Rick warned, and Negan had to roll his eyes.

“Always so goddamn _serious_ , Rick. Doesn't that ever get old?”

“That’s what _Judith_ calls me, Negan. Don’t say it again.” Negan caught a glimmer of a smile on his full lips. “Makes my balls wanna crawl up into my body when you say that shit. So don’t.”

Negan nodded, a mockery of seriousness. “Yes _sir_.” It took all he had not to burst into hoots of laughter at Rick Grimes mentioning his balls. He had the strangest feeling that Rick did it to amuse him, too. “Get in here, baby. Let me cash the checks my mouth’s been writing. Promise I’ll fucking deliver.” Rick reached into his front shirt pocket and handed Negan something between the bars: Cherry-Flavored Lube. Well, now.

Negan watched with hungry interest as Rick unlocked the cell door and stepped inside. His shirt was already half undone and he hadn’t bothered with a belt after his shower. “Fucking eager tonight.” Negan descended on him, hands roving over his bare chest and back, mapping out the contours of muscles and memorizing the raised scar tissue. Rick’s jeans hit the floor and suddenly the hands roaming down to Rick’s ass met bare skin, and just the idea of Rick going commando on the walk from his house to the cell made Negan’s brain short-circuit. He gave the man’s ass a few greedy squeezes, turning him and backing him up toward the bed. Rick tumbled onto it, legs splayed, and Negan groaned, sliding a hand down to rub himself through his pants. Rick’s face warmed, ears growing pink. Negan pulled him to the edge, kneeling on the cold floor and swallowing Rick down in one.

“Christ!” Negan felt Rick’s hands instinctively reach for his hair before stuttering and dropping back down to knot in the bedsheets, and he laughed around the cock in his mouth, drawing a nearly pained moan out of the man above him. A flash of teeth along the underside, just enough to put Rick on edge, and then he was off just long enough to breathe out a single command.

“Don’t come.”

If Rick had anything to say on the matter, Negan chased it away by the work of his mouth. He was a fast study when it came to Rick Grimes, and he’d had nearly two years of fantasizing about exactly what he wanted to do to Rick to guide him. Rick’s cock was a generous length, thick enough to stretch Negan’s lips as he took him to the base, tongue hot and wet along the underside, and Rick was panting like Negan was sucking the air out of his lungs. Chest heaving, belly trembling and flexing, Negan slid a hand up to soothe him and feel the way his muscles pulled tight.

Rick didn’t seem to hear the snap of the lid or notice Negan nudging his legs up a little further. He complied eagerly, too lost in his own pleasure to work out what Negan was planning until the moment the other man slid a single slick finger deep inside him.

Rick let loose a ragged cry, thighs clenching around Negan’s head. “ _Negan_ -” Negan glanced up Rick’s body to see the other man with his head thrown back, chest arched and biceps flexed as he knotted his hands in the sheets. Fuck, he was _gorgeous_ , and Negan couldn’t resist undoing his pants and giving himself a few strokes to try to lessen the ache.

Rick’s breathy whimpers filled the room as Negan fingered him open and sucked him, breath only hitching in surprise when Negan’s mouth left him to dip down to his balls and then lower to where his fingers were disappearing into Rick’s pliant body. _Cherry Pie_ , Negan mused to himself as he traced the rim of Rick’s opening and Rick moaned and pushed further back onto his mouth and fingers.

“Please- _please_ , Negan, I can’t-” Rick whined, thighs trembling, and Negan laughed.

“We haven’t even gotten to the good part yet, baby.” And then he hooked his fingers inside of Rick as he raked his nails down one strong, thick thigh from knee to groin, and Rick practically wailed, the sound hitching as Negan continued to fuck into his prostate. He felt Rick shoving at his shoulder, and when he glanced up he saw Rick’s stomach coated in white and red on his lips. Negan pulled his fingers out gently and noticed how Rick flinched when he crawled up the bed beside him. He frowned, wiping away the blood on Rick’s lip- it looked like he’d bitten through it.

“Rick. Look at me.”

Rick’s eyes snapped open without question, shame swimming in their depths. “Told you I couldn’t last,” he rasped. Rick’s clear embarrassment should have made Negan gloat, but he couldn’t find it in him- not when Rick was looking like that, so sad and guilty like he always fucking did on the other side of the bars.

“It’s alright, Rick. _Hey_.” He tipped Rick’s chin toward him, mouth set in a frown. “It was too much. I should’ve known- that’s on me. C’mere, darlin’.” He leaned in and pressed their lips together, lapping at Rick’s lower lip until the taste of blood faded. His thumb traced Rick’s swollen lip when he pulled back. “No more of that shit, alright?”

Rick didn’t have the same look he had last week, at least- that lost, faraway look that had shaken Negan and brought out every instinct he had to protect the man who had trusted him with something so fragile. As Negan had expected, Rick hadn’t wanted his kindness or gentle touches.

“Alright?” Negan prompted again, and Rick nodded, eyes falling to the rumpled sheets beneath them.

“Alright.”

Negan kissed his lips again before looking down Rick’s bare body. “I’m still going to fuck you anyway,” he added nonchalantly, just to see feel Rick shudder against him. “And I’m not gonna be so fuckin’ _nice_ about it this time.” He nipped at the shell of Rick’s ear, and Rick practically growled, coming to life in his arms.

“Wasn’t askin’ you to,” he replied, and then he was turning in Negan’s arms, head down and thighs parted invitingly, and Negan had to take a moment to appreciate the sight of Rick’s perfect ass raised for him in offering.

Rick had told him not to be nice, so he wasn’t- Negan mounted him and shoved his thighs further apart, breaching the smaller man without pause or ceremony. Rick made a noise into the sheets that Negan barely registered over the way the man was squeezing his dick like it was his goddamned job. He inched his way inside, nails biting into Rick’s hips, dick throbbing in the tight, slick heat that was bound to drive Negan out of his mind.

_Knew he’d be tight as hell. Knew his ass would fit my dick like a goddamned glove, like he was made for me to fuck, knew that he’d take it and take it-_

“ _Negan._ ” Rick’s voice was thick with arousal and unravelling like yarn and it stoked the fire burning through Negan’s veins.

He fucked Rick thoroughly, slamming in with enough force to leave him a bruised, tender mess. As Negan had predicted, he took it and _loved_ it, making noises he’d never made for Negan before, practically screaming when Negan reached around his waist to take his cock in his fist. Sweat dappled Rick’s bare back and ran down Negan’s neck and nose, dripping onto pale skin like rain. Rick clawed at the sheets like a wild animal, like the animal Negan always knew he was, growling and grunting and then outright wailing when Negan grabbed his heavy balls and squeezed.

“Mine,” Negan husked out, barely capable of coherent speech. Teetering on the brink, Rick still clung to every word off his tongue, and Negan reveled in the man’s rapt attention. “These are _mine_.” Rick nodded eagerly, and Negan thought he may not know what he was saying after all- too far gone, only able to comply if it meant Negan continued fucking him like he wanted. He fisted Rick’s dripping dick again, giving it a single firm stroke before Rick’s hips began to snap forward and fuck into it. “ _This_ is mine. Say it, Rick.”

“ _Yours_ ,” Rick gasped, hands twisting into the sheets so violently Negan was sure they’d rip. He clenched around Negan with every inward push, breaths growing ragged and moans getting higher, and Negan knew what that meant, but he wasn’t finished with Rick just yet.

“Reach back,” Negan commanded, “spread yourself for me. Let me see what you looked like stuffed full of my dick.”

Rick’s ears turned a deeper shade of scarlet, the blush coloring his neck and shoulders, but he obeyed, face flat against the sheets as his hands came back to part his bruised cheeks. Negan groaned at the sight, feeling his own orgasm threatening to take him apart. Rick was stuffed full alright, slick and deeply pink where Negan was plunging into him. His muscles fluttered and Negan’s eyes rolled back in his head at the sight and feeling of it, heart hammering in his chest.

“Good boy,” he managed, raking his nails up Rick’s thick thighs, and then burying himself deep once, twice, working Rick’s cock with fast, smooth strokes until he could feel it twitching in his fist-

“ _Oh_ \- oh, God-” Negan felt Rick tighten all around him, his prostate mercilessly abused until he shattered, muffling his scream into the bed as he came. At the first warm, wet gush of Rick’s come over his hand, Negan let go, fucking him with short, needy thrusts and filling him, his orgasm shaking him apart just as thoroughly as he’d unraveled Rick.

Rick’s thighs gave out as his orgasm faded, sliding down until he was prone on the bed. Negan’s softening dick slid out of him in the process, and he couldn’t suppress the whimper that left him when he saw that Rick was still holding himself open, his entrance wet and abused with Negan’s come dripping from it. Marking him.

 _Mine_ , Negan thought ferociously, the thought overtaking him. _He’s mine, mine, mine-_

“Yours,” Rick whispered, barely audible over Negan’s own heavy breaths. He startled, not realizing he’d spoken aloud, and then composed himself.

“You’re goddamn right.” He gave Rick a playful swat on the ass. “You can let go of yourself, by the way. Not that I mind the view.”

Rick’s hands retreated and he rolled halfway over, just enough to look Negan in the face. He looked completely debauched, face as red as Negan had ever seen it, eyes faraway and wandering like he was looking for something but didn’t know what he needed.

Negan fought to tamp down the instinct that urged him to collapse beside Rick and take the sweat-soaked, fucked-out man into his arms and just lie there, basking in what they’d just done together. He wanted to kiss every flushed inch of him, coo in his ear and tell him that he was perfect, that he was everything Negan had ever dreamed of and more, that he was beautiful.

Then he remembered the way Rick had stiffened and pulled away when he’d tried to do that the last time. _Of course he doesn’t want that you fucking idiot_ , he’d chastised himself after Rick had retreated. _He’s here for sex. He’s here because nobody else is barking up his tree for whatever goddamned reason, and you’re the only one left. He doesn’t want to be fucking coddled by you. He’s here because he wants it rough and he knows you’ll lay him out. That’s fucking it._

Instead, he said, “you’re one hell of a lay, Rick. Hard to believe you don’t have a line halfway around the fuckin’ block for the chance to roll around in the sheets with you.” It was a compliment of sorts, and the corners of Rick’s mouth twitched up in a weak smile that made confusing warmth spread through Negan’s chest.

“Must not be advertisin’ right,” he replied, and Negan rocked back on his heels and laughed.

“Still can’t believe you know how to make jokes. I was fucking sure you were missing your sense of humor altogether.” Rick sat up slowly, wincing a little, and Negan grinned proudly. “Yeah, you're gonna be walkin’ funny tomorrow, sheriff. I’d say I was sorry, but we both know I ain’t.”

“Jackass,” Rick muttered, though Negan wanted to believe he heard some affection in his tone. Wishful thinking, he supposed. “I’ll just tell people I’m sore from ridin’.” He knew the second it left his lips that it was a poor choice of words, Negan could tell from the way he winced like he could read Negan’s mind and knew what was coming next. “The horse, I mean,” he tried to say, but Negan wasn’t having it.

“You just tell ‘em that, Ricky. And tell you what- one of these days, I’ll let you sit on my dick and take her for a ride like the cowboy you are, and then you won’t have to lie.”

Rick’s cheeks colored and he slid off the bed, grabbing for his clothes. Negan watched as he redressed, eyes feasting on the way his release dripped down Rick’s inner thighs. God, what he wouldn’t give for a few photos of Rick to supplement his spank bank. There were only so many times he could whack off to paragraphs of questionable prose detailing the torrid affair of Annaleigh and her cowboy lover.

The strangest thing happened when Rick ducked out of the cell and went to close it. As always, the sound of the lock made Negan’s stomach sink, but suddenly he needed to touch Rick one last time, wanted to plead with him to stay like anything, _anything_ , would be better than having to sleep there alone again.

Once again he fought the impulse, staying put on his bed and tossing Rick a falsely light and cheery, “Night, sweet cheeks,” when Rick bid him goodbye. He watched with an ache in his chest as Rick’s silhouette disappeared out the door and into the night, knowing that it would be hours before the relief of sleep would claim him.


	9. Ruin

Rick kept having these dreams.

Morgan was always there, right in his peripheral vision, saying things Rick could barely hear in a whisper still familiar even though it had been years since Rick had heard them; The same words over and over again, some of the first ones Morgan had spoken to him: _What is your wound?_

And then one of their last conversations: _Because of my son._

And then he would see Carl. Sometimes just as he’d died- long hair, ruined eye, lanky limbs. Sometimes he was much younger, six or seven, innocent and carefree. He would always be just out of reach as he walked through Alexandria, and no matter how much Rick tried to run, it was like he was underwater, his body weighted, the world tilting beneath his feet, and he could never catch up.

Negan was always there. Always dressed down, hands in the ground, ripping up Rick’s garden, and Rick always wanted to shout at him to make something for once in his life instead of ruining it.

And then he would wake up.

* * *

“Alright, take it all off. C’mon.” Rick tapped his booted foot impatiently against the concrete floor, arms crossed over his chest.

Negan gave what Rick had to assume was his attempt at a sultry little wiggle, slowly unbuttoning his shirt. “Don’t pretend you aren’t diggin’ the show, baby,” he crooned, and Rick rolled his eyes.

“Water’s gonna get cold if you don’t hurry the hell up.” He nudged the metal bucket, heavy with hot water, that sat on the floor between them.

“Might need a cold shower if you keep lookin’ at me like that,” Negan quipped, but he shed his clothes more eagerly, kicking them to the side without care. Rick had brought him a clean set down along with the water.

He always liked bath days, because it was always Rick that had to stand there and watch him. Ever since the beginning of his imprisonment, it had been a source of wicked delight for him, watching Rick squirm and fight the blush rising to his cheeks as Negan dropped every innuendo he could think of.

It was even better now, with Rick openly eyeing him as he scrubbed himself with a wet, soapy washcloth, arms folded over his chest and legs crossed where he leaned against the wall. Water puddled beneath Negan’s feet, and he threw Rick a heated look as he bent over to get at his legs.

He ducked his eyes, coy and deliberate, and waited, counting off in his head and picturing the color rising in Rick’s face.

_…three, two, one._

He stood up slowly and grinned when he saw that Rick’s face, though still stoic, was pink at the cheeks and across his regal nose. The younger man shifted slightly, uncrossing and re-crossing his legs, drawing Negan’s eyes to the hefty bulge in the front of his jeans.

“Touch yourself,” Negan commanded without thinking, gratified when Rick’s eyes blew wide and his lips parted just slightly. Negan nodded to him. “Go on. Give me a fucking show.”

Rick’s face was scarlet. “ _Negan_.”

“ _Rick_ ,” Negan drawled in return, still soaping himself up. “You heard me, baby. I’m being so fucking _generous_ with you right now, letting you get off. You don’t have to do a damn thing for me. I just wanna see you with a hand down your pants.”

Negan was sure he could have fried an egg on Rick’s burning face, but much to his delight, Rick uncrossed his legs and widened his stance just slightly. He reached down and cupped himself without ceremony, tracing the shape of his cock through his pants before giving it a firm rub that made his hips twitch. Negan groaned at the sight, unable to look away from those strong, skilled hands. “Keep going.”

He’d gotten Rick off with his hands plenty of times, but there was something about watching him touch himself, seeing just how he liked it, that made Negan’s mouth water. He teased himself, which came as no shock- one moment he’d be working himself in earnest, rubbing himself with the heel of his hand, and the next he’d be reaching further down to cup his balls. Negan could see the full outline of his dick through his jeans, the length of him running along his right thigh, the head clearly visible.  The lack of contact through the thick denim had to be driving him wild, Negan knew it, but he also noticed how Rick didn’t unzip, didn’t take the next step on his own. He wasn’t sure what was stopping him until Rick met his gaze with desperate, pleading eyes.

 _He’s waiting for permission_ , Negan realized, and holy _fuck_ , if that wasn’t the hottest thing that had happened to him since- well, since the last time he’d stuck his dick into Rick, anyway.

“Take your belt off”, Negan commanded, and the leather was out of the loops in seconds, the buckle hitting the concrete with a _clink_. “Unzip. Slide your had down the front.”

He practically drooled when Rick obeyed, reaching into his pants to stroke himself without a barrier between his palm and his cock. His chest shuddered and he sighed in pleasure, eyelashes fluttering, head lolling back to rest against the wall. He alternated between rubbing himself and stroking, the motions short and restricted by his tight jeans. Negan imagined what Rick would look like completely bare and laid out on a bed, his legs apart, two of his own fingers pushing inside himself while he jerked off with his free hand. _Another time_ , he thought.

Rick’s t-shirt was rucked up slightly where his hand disappeared into his pants, and Negan licked his lips, an idea forming. “Pinch your nipple with your other hand.”

Rick looked at him with hazy eyes, too lust-addled to argue. His shirt drew up a little more when he slid a hand beneath, baring a strip of his stomach and hip to Negan, who hungrily devoured the sight. His own dick was hard as steel and standing proudly between his bare thighs, and he wrapped his fist around it, eyes never leaving Rick’s shameless display. He watched as Rick’s hand stuttered on his length and his lips fell open wider when his fingers began to play with his nipple, pinching it beneath the thin fabric.

“God, there you fucking _go_ , Rick. If you could see yourself right now… _mm, honey_.” A flush climbed Rick’s cheeks, the tips of his ears going red. He sank his teeth into his full lower lip, barely stifling the moan that left him when he rubbed his nipple and then pinched it again.

“Harder, Rick. I know you like it rough,” Negan ordered, and Rick obeyed, pinching and twisting until he whimpered high in his throat. “Pull that pretty dick out, baby. Let me see how hard I’m making you.”

Rick didn’t open his eyes, just worked his jeans and boxers down with one hand until his cock sprung free, bobbing between his thick thighs and flushed the same dusky pink as his cheeks. Negan bit his lip and groaned, jerking himself faster, babbling as he drew nearer and nearer to his peak.

“So fucking hot, Rick, you have no fucking clue what you’re doing to me. Shit, if you let me record this, I wouldn’t ever leave my fucking bed.” Rick’s hips began to rock forward into his fist, hand firm around his cock, the dripping head disappearing and reappearing as Rick fucked into his own hand. “Never pick up that damn cowboy book again, I’ll tell you that fuckin’ much. _Fuck_.” Rick switched to his other nipple, drawing it into a stiff, sensitive peak. Negan could see the other one standing out from beneath his shirt and shuddered, eyes rolling back in his head. “Gonna make me come, Rick. I’m about to-” Negan jerked and swore, curses interwoven with Rick’s name falling from his lips as he spilled onto the wet floor. He heard Rick whimper, heard the sound of his hand speeding up as he played with himself, and Negan floated back into his body just in time.

“Stop.”

Rick’s hands stilled immediately even as his hips arched off the wall in protest as the overwhelming pleasure fell away all at once. He pleaded with desperate eyes, looking so betrayed that Negan almost let him have what he wanted. “What- why can’t I…?”

“Beg me for it,” Negan replied easily, glad that he didn’t sound as undone as he felt. Rick’s eyebrows furrowed, and he looked torn between slugging Negan in the jaw and falling to his knees for him.

“Please,” Rick mumbled, eyes jumping from Negan to the floor, and Negan smirked.

“Aw, honey,” Negan cooed, rinsing himself with the last of the clean water and then wrapping a towel around his waist. “Are you too embarrassed to beg me to get off?” Rick bit his lip. “Well that’s just too damn bad, isn’t it? You want to come, don’t you?” He openly eyes Rick’s cock, thick and hard and wet at the tip. “Yeah, I can see how bad you need it. You’d better tell me.”

“I need it,” Rick said, a little stronger this time. “ _Please_ , I need it.”

“Tell me how bad.”

“So bad,” Rick whispered, throat bobbing. “I need it so fucking bad, Negan, _please_. Let me.”

“Let you what?” Negan sat on the edge of the bed stretched his long legs out in front of him, forcing nonchalance. Rick looked ready to cry he was so desperate to get off, face flushed and hand trembling.

“Let me come.” Rick’s voice cracked just a little, and like that, the last of his resolve chipped away. “Please, _please_ , let me come. I need to come, please, I- I…” he trailed off, eyes shattered and pleading, and Negan took mercy on him.

“Go on, then. Let me see it.”

Rick immediately began jerking off again, motions fast and needy and desperate, like he wasn’t sure if Negan was going to tell him to stop again and he wanted to come before he could say anything. Worked up and at the end of his rope, Rick let the moans flow freely from between his slack lips, back arching, eyelashes fluttering…and then he came with a shout that Negan was positive he’d scourge himself for later, the sound high and ringing, creamy white spilling over the floor. Negan watched him with avid interest, and if he was a much younger man he would have surely been hard all over again seeing Rick come apart under his own hand. He was so goddamn _gorgeous_ like this, shameless in his single-minded need for release, open and trusting in a way that Negan treasured more than anything else he possessed in his meager life.

Rick was unsteady on his feet when he came down, knees buckling only to catch himself on the windowsill at the last minute. Far too sated to be embarrassed, he slumped against the wall and caught his breath while Negan dried off and got dressed in clean clothes. He fingered over the worn blue button-up he’d been given, smiling to himself.

“Is this your shirt?” It was baggy on Negan’s lanky frame, but then again, Rick usually wore his shirts a tad loose.

Rick tucked himself away and wiped his hand on Negan’s dirty laundry. “Only wore it once or twice, but yeah.” His chin jutted out in a challenge that almost seemed playful. “Why? That a problem?”

“ _Hell_ no. Feels like I’m wearin’ my boyfriend’s letterman jacket.” Negan watched as Rick’s smile twitched downward and he rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so fucking dramatic, Rick. I’m just yankin’ your balls. I know you and me haven’t made it official yet. Exchanged promise rings and promised to go to the same college after we graduate-”

Rick scoffed and tossed Negan’s pants at him. “You ever get tired of runnin’ your damn mouth all the time? I swear half the time you just say shit to hear yourself talk.”

“I’ve been told that my voice is soothing and sexy as fuck, Rick, so you’re welcome.” He tugged on the loose, comfy sweats that Rick had given him, and the idea of Rick wearing such a thing made him long for something he didn’t dare look closely at. He imagined the other man dressed down with wet hair after a shower, feet bare and propped up on the coffee table, Judith in his lap as he read to her.

He didn’t like thinking about things like that- impossible things that he knew he’d never come close to experiencing. For all he knew, that was what Rick went home and did every night while Negan lay awake and alone in his cell.

“Brought you somethin’,” Rick said, and Negan was jerked out of his thoughts so quickly he felt his head spin. Rick _brought_ him something?

He had to laugh when Rick drew a pair of scissors and a razor out of the sack he’d brought with him. “Don’t like the mall Santa beard?” His eyes twinkled and he stroked the fuzz that was, admittedly, getting itchy as a wool sweater. “Little hypocritical, don’t you think?” Rick’s own face was covered in fluffy grey and white, though his was much less unkempt than Negan’s own.

“Not when you don’t keep it groomed,” Rick tossed over his shoulder as he dragged his chair into the cell and planted himself in front of Negan, looping his fingers through the scissors. “And you’ve mentioned a good half dozen times that you don’t like it, so I figured I’d show you some mercy. Now hold still.”

For months upon months when Negan had first been locked up, Rick hadn’t even come into his cell, just set the bucket of water and soap within Negan’s reach between the bars. Haircuts had been nonexistent because there was no way in hell that Rick was coming anywhere close to him with something that could be used as a weapon against him.

Negan took it as a sign of trust that Rick was in his cell now, razor in his back jeans pocket, scissors clipping away the excess of Negan’s beard. The hair fell in clumps into the bucket Rick had placed between them, drifting like icebergs atop the sudsy water. He watched Rick’s face as he worked, noticing how his brows furrowed in concentration and he always, always was sure to be careful and not catch at skin.

It was when Rick cupped water in his hands and wet Negan’s face and then lathered his cheeks with soap that he felt a flutter in his stomach. Warm, gentle touches, careful, strokes of the razor over Negan’s skin.

Lucille used to give him a clean shave every Sunday afternoon with a straight razor and a thick coating of shaving cream. He remembered the musk of Barbasol and the swish of water as she rinsed and repeated over and over again until he was baby-smooth the way they both liked.

“Tilt your head up a little,” Rick murmured, thumb warm beneath Negan’s chin.

Negan breathed out and blinked up at the ceiling. Throat bared to the man who had slit it- he supposed trust was a two-way street.

Goosebumps broke out across his arms and neck when he felt Rick’s finger drag along the thin white scar there, a reminder of what they’d both done. For a moment, Negan almost thought Rick was going to apologize.

“I’m done. You look about ten years younger, by the way.” Rick rinsed the razor one last time, and Negan looked down at him. He had no right to be disappointed, and he knew it. Back then, he’d had every intention of killing Rick at the end of the war. That Rick had second thoughts was more than Negan could say about himself.

_We both have a lot to apologize for. Maybe it all evens out in the end. He kills my men, I kill his. I knock him around in front of his friends, he slits my throat. Tit for fucking tat._

Rick used Negan’s towel to pat his face dry, rubbing gentle circles over the sensitive, freshly-shaved skin.

_Or maybe we’re in a fucking stalemate waiting for each other to own their shit. You think he’s ever gonna forgive you for what you did to his friends? For what you said to him about Carl?_

He didn’t like thinking about that. If it was up to him, the past would be left there, long forgotten and abandoned. What good did it do to harp on things he couldn’t take back? At the end of the day, Glenn and Abraham would still be dead, Rick would still have the memories of Negan digging his fingers into the gaping wound that was the death of his son, and Negan would still be locked in a cell with nothing to call his own, not even the shirt on his back.

* * *

Everything had been going well. Not smoothly, not perfectly, but well enough that Rick could breathe without feeling that tight, hollow ache in the center of his chest. It had been a long time since there had been a serious incident, and so far, minus the ex-Saviors that had seemingly skipped out on bridge duty, everyone was present and accounted for.

Sometimes Rick forgot just how big a threat the undead could be. It always seemed like people were the more dangerous animal, but the undead had a way of turning up when they least expected it.

It wasn’t an unmanageable number of walkers that had broken free of the herd they’d been keeping an eye on, but it was enough to fuck things up. Enough that some of the people from the Sanctuary had panicked and run when they stumbled out of the woods and into the clearing where they’d been felling trees for lumber.

They’d panicked and fled, and Aaron had paid the price. When Rick heard, his stomach twisted in panic.

“He’d been working to tie off the logs with some of the Saviors.” Rick hated when people still called them that, but what could be done? People didn’t listen, and Cyndie continued, jaw tight and tone clipped and angry. “They _ran_. They left him there. The logs fell and his arm got trapped and- _shit_. Enid had to do it. She _had_ to. His arm was shredded to the bone.”

It seemed like Aaron was forever getting the short end of the stick, and Rick blamed himself for that. He was in remarkably high spirits for a man who’d just had his left arm amputated by an apprentice doctor that had only ever done stitches before.

“My heart’s still beating, right?” Aaron joked as Rick sat beside him and apologized for what had happened over and over again, asked how he was, if he needed anything. Sweat beaded on his brow, and Rick reached out to wipe it away with the palm of his hand before setting it on the center of Aaron’s chest, feeling the steady thrum beneath his ribs.

He forced a weak smile. “Feels like it.”

Behind him, Daryl’s eyes bored into his back. His knuckles were bloody from laying into Justin, one of the men that had ditched Aaron and left him trapped. 

“You got enough of everythin’ here? Painkillers, gauze, antiseptic?” Rick’s eyes bounced over to Enid, who looked exhausted but confident. She’d likely saved Aaron’s life today.

“We’ve got enough. I wouldn’t mind if Siddiq came and took a look at him tomorrow- everything looks like it did in the books, but I’d feel better getting a second opinion.” She winced apologetically. “Sorry, Aaron.”

“Don’t apologize. You did so well, Enid,” he murmured, and Rick nodded in agreement.

“You did. I’m proud of you, Enid. I know Siddiq will be, too.” Rick couldn’t express with words how grateful he was for the young woman who had kept her calm and did what she needed to do. The corner of her mouth ticked up slightly, and Rick tried not to think about what could have been if Carl was still alive. If she would have become a part of his immediate family over the years. "I'll have Siddiq come with me tomorrow morning to look him over."

As soon as he stepped out of the tent, Daryl followed, his face stormy with emotion. 

“You let these people in. _You_ did that, Rick! And you still ain’t tellin’ ‘em to go. Even after this. They ain’t people you can trust. You could see that if you’d pull your head outta your ass.”

Rick wanted to scream into the night, walkers be damned. What could he say? He _did_ feel responsible for what had happened- it was his job to keep his people safe, his project that Aaron had been working on. If Rick could switch places with Aaron, he would do it in a heartbeat. The man had suffered more than enough on Rick's behalf. 

As if sensing that Rick was already down, Justin caught him on the way out of camp to add a few licks of his own, smug little smile on his face like he knew that Rick wasn’t going to do a damn thing.

“Keep your dog on a leash next time,” he said, and Rick snapped, whirling on the other man and staring him down, ready to sink his teeth into the soft flesh of his throat.

"Excuse me?" 

Justin smirked. "You heard me. That bitch of yours damn near killed me over nothin'."

Rick felt something in him twist violently and then snap, rage and guilt and protective instinct coming to a head. 

"I know you," he murmured, eyes boring into the other man's. "See, I used to be a cop. And every Saturday night, I’d have to pick up some dipshit like you and listen to him run his mouth in the back of my car. Every one of them tryin' to blame someone else for their own damn problems.”

"I don't need to listen to this-" Justin griped, moving to walk away before Rick called him back with the bite in his voice. 

" _Wrong_. You're gonna stand there, and you're gonna listen to every word. Now I gave you the benefit of the doubt- that is _done_." Rick spit the words with vigor, savoring the heady rush of anger. “You’re gonna pack your shit and get out of here first thing in the morning. And if I _ever_ see your face again, stitches won’t fix what I do to you.”

Justin seemed to get the message, storming away and grumbling under his breath about not waiting until morning to leave. The satisfaction came and went so fast that it left Rick reeling in its wake.

* * *

The dreams that night were unlike anything he’d had in ages. He kept seeing Aaron trapped beneath the logs, the scene replaying over and over, each time twisting and mutating into something worse. First his arm was shredded to a pulp, the bone broken and exposed, Aaron seething his pain out through his teeth. Then Rick was there trying to get him out and he couldn’t. No matter what he did, he _couldn’t_ , so he raised his hatchet, and then they were both soaked in crimson but he had to keep going, hacking through muscle and bone while Aaron screamed.

He kept waking up between dreams, each time shaking and sweating and praying that he’d rest easier the next time. After the one where he’d amputated Aaron’s arm, he stumbled downstairs and drew out the half-empty bottle of whiskey he stored in one of the cabinets. It burned going down and raged in his chest, nearly painful, but he drank until he couldn’t anymore, until he thought it was sure to knock him out into a dreamless slumber.

The last one was the worst. He couldn’t get to Aaron in time and the walkers swarmed, and his ears rang with the sound of his friend’s agonized screams even when he jerked back into reality.

The whiskey was a storm-tossed sea in his empty stomach. With the scream still in his ears, he tripped over himself in his rush to the bathroom, whole body heaving as his midnight drink came back up.

The ringing in his ears was gone when he finally slumped to the tile floor, his body slick with cold sweat, every muscle trembling. His throat was raw like he’d been the one screaming, though since Judith was still asleep, that couldn’t have been the case.

It wasn’t until he finally managed to stand up several minutes later and saw his pale, waxy face in the mirror that he realized he’d been crying. He wasn’t sure when it started, if it had been going on since he woke up.

 _Christ_ , he thought as he stared himself down, _I look worse than the dead._

He couldn’t go back to sleep, he knew that much. Tonight was a lost cause- maybe he’d try again tomorrow during the day, catch a few hours in his tent at the campsite, but tonight he felt half-mad and strung out, and it occurred to him suddenly as he was washing his mouth out and splashing water on his face what he wanted.

The need hit him so hard it took his breath away, and suddenly that was all he could focus on, all he could think of. He didn’t even bother getting properly dressed, just pulled a jacket on over his sweat-soaked tee and checked on Judith one last time before stepping out into the night.

The last traces of alcohol in his veins made the world spin around him as he walked, but he didn’t care. It didn’t matter.

His eyes were set on the man behind the iron bars, and the moment Rick locked the door behind himself, he felt the rest of the world fall away. Negan’s voice called to him like a siren song.

“ _Rick_. I was wonderin’ when I’d see you again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> turns out that juggling a normal job +human interaction + fic updates is hard as hell...here's to hoping the next update doesn't take me 2 weeks -.-


	10. Toll

Negan was awake when Rick unlocked his cell and stepped inside, closing it behind him. The man’s eyes glittered in the dark, only weak moonlight keeping him from being completely blind.

“Rick? The hell you doin’ here this late?” Rick could hear the cocky smile in his voice, and his battered mind craved it- the strength, the confidence. Only Negan would know what he needed, how thoroughly to take him apart.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Rick rasped, his clothes already falling to the floor. Without thinking twice, he unlocked Negan's cell and stepped inside. 

The bed creaked when Negan stood, and in the dark, he looked like the boogeyman come to life, all sharp angles and long limbs. “So you came to me to tuck you in? Aw, honey, ain’t that just fuckin’ _precious_.”

“I need it,” Rick ground out, no patience for teasing or pleasantries. He grabbed the bars of the cell, legs apart, waiting. “ _Please_.” And then, before he even knew what he was saying, “Make it _hurt_.”

Negan must have heard his desperation- either that or he was exceptionally bored, because he was behind Rick immediately, lube-slick fingers fucking into him. Two at once, and Rick hissed because it was perfect, the burning stretch just what he’d been craving.

“It’s awful late,” Negan was saying. “You gonna be quiet for me?”

Rick panted, sweat already dripping from his sodden curls. “Make me.”

It probably should have disturbed him that Negan knew exactly what he meant, that the Bogeyman could see right into the cracked, desperate parts of him and read him like an open book. Maybe when the sun rose and he was sober and rested, it would. But for now, when Negan sought out the red scarf Rick had left there and shoved it into his mouth, he could only moan deep in his throat, because he _needed_ it.

Three fingers pushed into him without ceremony, and Rick’s head bowed between his tense shoulders. Meanwhile, Negan spoke to him, voice low and deep like the devil whispering in his ear.

“We need a system, I think. You want me to stop, reach back and slap my thigh. You want it harder, you dig those claws into me. Sound like a fuckin’ plan?”

Rick made a noise of affirmation through his gag, knowing full well that he wouldn’t be telling Negan to stop. He received a sharp nip to his shoulder as a reward. “Atta boy.”

The initial thrust inside drew a long, pained moan out of Rick’s throat, the sound choked and muffled. Negan’s hips snapped forward, the drag of it _delicious_ , and Rick closed his eyes, letting himself slip away.

 _Use me_ , Rick wanted to say, and somehow Negan knew. Hand on the spot between Rick’s shoulder blades, he pressed down until Rick was bent at the waist, hands sliding down the bars, Negan digging his fingers into Rick’s hips and pulling him back onto his cock, splitting him. Pain laced through the pleasure, making Rick’s body sing, making him shudder and shove back onto the cock sliding roughly into him.

It wasn’t enough.

Rick raked his nails down Negan’s left thigh, desperate, and Negan rewarded him by releasing one hip to return the favor, raising pink lines down Rick’s thighs while he pounded into him. Rick wailed into the gag, nodding, hips bucking, trying to tell him what he couldn’t say aloud- _more_. _Harder_.

Negan scratched him up until his thighs stung, until his back felt raw, and Rick’s eyes rolled back into his skull. His legs were spread as far as they could while still holding himself up, muscles clenched to draw Negan in.

All the while, Negan spoke.

“Such a fuckin’ slut, comin’ to me like this in the middle of the goddamn night. Bent yourself right over for me, and look at you- you can’t get enough.” Rick nodded, and he may have been speaking behind the gag but neither of them knew what he was saying. “You know just what you need, don’t you? And you know I’m the only one who’ll give it to you. The only one who sees you for what you are.”

Rick’s chest heaved, sweat puddling on the floor beneath him. He reached back and grabbed Negan’s hand, moving it to his ass, hoping the other man would understand.

There was the sharp _crack_ of Negan’s palm against Rick’s ass, and Rick shouted, relief washing over him with the pain. _Yes, yes yes._

“You _want_ to be punished, don’t you, Rick?” _Crack_. “Because you _know_ you fuckin’ deserve it.” _Crack_.

 _I do_ , Rick wanted to sob, _I deserve it. Give it to me._

His ass burned where Negan’s blows connected, skin stinging from his nails, body stretched to accommodate the other man’s cock. He felt like he was floating somewhere above his body, watching it all and feeling the sweet agony of what he was begging Negan to do to him.

“You’re so worked up right now. You’re a fucking _mess_.” The next blow was hard, the sound of flesh slapping against flesh ringing in Rick’s ears the way Aaron’s screams had, and Rick _sobbed_.

“You’d take it all goddamn day, wouldn’t you? Fuckin’ whore.”

_That’s what they’d call you if they knew._

“Takin’ it like a champ.”

_That’s what he said when Abraham-_

“My sweet little bitch. _Mine_.”

He was on his knees in the clearing, and Negan was saying those same words in front of everyone. Slapping him hard across the face. All but gutting him, and he deserved it.

His muscles burned, body on the brink of collapse. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

“You deserve this.” _Because of Glenn._ _Because of Abraham and Sasha and Eric._

Each harsh, stinging blow felt like justice being served. He felt like Negan had reached into him and turned him inside-out.

_Aaron almost died because of you. Daryl hates you. Maggie’s alone. Carl is dead._

Something broken and inhuman ripped out of Rick’s chest, loud even through the gag, his knees nearly giving out. Negan swore and filled him with a hot gush, but he barely registered it. Instead, words from a different era filled his ears, clear as if they were being spoken to him now.

_You failed, Rick. You failed as a leader, and worse, you failed as a father. Carl is dead because of you._

As soon as Negan let him go, Rick crumpled to his knees, shaking. It wasn’t enough- he wanted Negan to make him feel it, make the noise in his head fall silent. He couldn’t see, but he turned and gripped Negan’s hips with trembling fingers, pawing at him.

 _More_ , he tried to say, _please_.

Negan shook him off and flicked on the lantern beside his bed, eyes roaming over Rick, and he couldn’t fathom the look on his face. It was something close to disgust.

“Jesus fucking _Christ_ , Rick.” He ripped the scarf out of Rick’s mouth and hurled it between the gap in the bars, lip curling. Rick’s mouth opened and closed, but he couldn’t form words.

Negan, on the other hand, could.

“What the _fuck_? What the actual fucking _fuck_ was that shit?” He wrenched out of Rick’s grasp when he reached out for him again. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Rick didn’t understand. He wanted _more_ \- why the hell was Negan upset?

“I fucking _told_ you to stop me when it got to be too much.”

Rick blinked hard, his vision blurry and tunneling, the edges of the room dark, framing Negan. “Wh- _what_?” His voice was rough and torn, like he’d spent the day screaming.

Negan shook his head in disgust. “Why the fuck did you keep going? Why’d you act like you wanted _me_ to keep going?”

“I- I…” Rick shook his head, trying to clear the thick fog surrounding him. “I don’t- I _wanted_ -”

“You wanted what, Rick? You wanted me to fucking brutalize you?” Negan snapped, looking Rick’s crumpled form up and down. “You’re not even hard. Were you ever?”

Rick stared dumbly down at his lap, his flaccid cock hanging between his thighs, which were scraped raw and pink, the skin broken here and there and dotted with droplets of blood. It made sense, he supposed. It had never been about pleasure, not tonight. It couldn’t have been. But why the hell did that matter to _Negan_?

“You look like shit. You look like someone killed your fucking puppy. You look like I-” Negan broke off, voice cracking, and Rick couldn’t wrap his fractured mind around the words. “What was tonight about, Rick? What the fuck did you want me to do to you? Because I signed up to fuck you. To get off _with_ you. Not- not whatever the hell just happened.”

 _Isn’t this what you always wanted, though?_ Rick wanted to scream. _To break me?_

Negan threw Rick’s clothes in his face and laid back down on his bed. “Get the fuck out.”

Rick went.

* * *

When Rick woke the next morning, he barely remembered returning home last night and crawling into bed. For several scattered minutes, he lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling and trying to sort through the hazy memories of the night before. They shifted slowly into focus along with the dull throb of a headache at his temples- the dreams, the desperation, the headspace that he’d all but begged Negan to take him to. And then how furious Negan had been when it was all said and done and he realized what Rick had been wanting all along.

He hadn’t understood Negan’s anger last night, but now, in the harsh light of day, he saw it, paired with flashes of moments between himself and Negan- the way he’d held him and stroked through his hair; the kisses that had stolen Rick’s breath; the curious, gentle look in his eyes that Rick caught on occasions before Negan could look away.

Negan didn’t want to hurt him.

It didn’t make a lick of sense. Causing Rick pain was never anything Negan had shied away from before. In fact, he’d reveled in it, bragged even long after he’d been locked away and couldn’t get his hands on Rick anymore. Talked about how he’d ground him into the dirt, made him beg and cry, how he’d loved the times where they’d gone one-on-one during the war, fists and feet, blood flying. Even locked away, Negan had always, _always_ delighted in finding just the right buttons to push that made Rick want to curl into a ball or reach through the bars and throttle him. And what- now that Rick _wanted_ him to, Negan didn’t like hurting him anymore?

 _Maybe that’s the problem_ , Rick thought wildly. _Maybe it’s no fun for him if I want it._

He wanted to believe that was it, that he’d cracked the enigma that was Negan and found himself unimpressed. It would be easier to swallow than the alternative.

 _What the hell is the alternative? That he’s not as cruel as you thought he was? That he’s come to- what? Care about you?_ Rick shook his head, sickened that his mind would even go there. A mere month ago, Negan had been laying into him every other time he came to visit. And now-

Now, Rick couldn’t recall a single time since they’d begun this new game between them that Negan had been intentionally cruel to him. He’d suggested their little arrangement as something that would benefit Rick- though it was possible that it had all been a masterful display of reverse psychology. Negan had made it no secret that he’d wanted Rick since the beginning. And here Rick was, on his knees and begging for it. The audacity of it just about gutted him, but then…there was the kindness and last night’s revulsion. The Negan that Rick had met out in the woods the night Glenn and Abe died would have been positively _giddy_ at the notion of causing Rick pain like he had last night.

Either way, Rick needed to clear the air between them for his own peace of mind. If he let himself spiral off into thoughts of Negan, he’d never claw himself back out.

And so, after breakfast when Gabriel came over to look after Judith for the day, Rick sloshed through the mud from last night’s rain, Negan’s breakfast in hand. It was always strange making breakfast for three- almost like Negan was a part of the family. _Or a stray that I keep feedin' for god knows what reason,_ he mused.

For the first time in a very, very long time, Negan didn't speak a single word when Rick cracked the door open and stepped inside. He was awake, lying upside-down in bed with his heels kicked up on the wall, and if Rick didn't know him, he'd have thought the man was relaxed. 

“We need to talk,” was the first thing out of Rick’s mouth when he set the tray on the floor with a soft clatter. He was never good at beating around the bush- straightforward and simple, that was always his approach. He watched warily while Negan rose from the bed and snatched the toast off the tray.

“Talk, then,” he muttered around a mouthful, and Rick felt his palms prickle with anxious sweat.

“About last night- I didn’t know that you didn’t want to hurt me. I thought that was kinda the point of all this.”

Negan’s lip curled. “You thought the point of us screwin’ around was me hurting you? Jesus, deputy, and you think _I’m_ fucked up in the head?”

“What’s the point, then?” Rick asked, voice and posture cagey. “If you don’t wanna hurt me…why’re you doin’ this? Is it just the sex?” He supposed that could be it- Negan’s underfed sexual appetite was a constant source of complaint for the other man.

“What’s the point for you, Rick? Why do you want this?” Negan’s eyes flashed challengingly, and Rick felt exposed, backed into a corner.

“It’s about takin’ my mind off of- of all the shit out _there_.” He tipped his head toward the door. “Guess it’s about the sex, too,” he admitted, because he’d be a liar if he said otherwise. It was going on four years since he’d slept with someone, and he couldn’t deny that being with Negan, apart from last night, felt good.

Negan made a gruff noise in his throat and popped a strawberry into his mouth. “So what about last night? Don’t tell me that was about the sex. About _forgetting_.”

“What do you think it was about, then?” Rick challenged.

“Punishment,” Negan said simply. “See, before last night, I was in this for the sex. And I thought you were in it because you weren’t gettin’ it anywhere else and you needed a little breather from being King Shit. And I understood that. But the shit we did- you weren’t enjoying it. It wasn’t getting you off, and it wasn’t making you forget. You were making me punish you for whatever happened that day. The guy that lost his arm.” Rick’s eyes lowered, the truth and shame of it sinking in. “And that shit doesn’t fucking fly with me. Sex isn’t a goddamned punishment. The fact that you let me- that you asked me to-” Negan broke off in disgust, shaking his head and frowning down at his half-eaten breakfast. “If that’s why you’re here, we can’t keep doin’ this.”

It hit Rick like a slap in the face, and he realized what this was- rock bottom. Even _Negan_ didn’t want him. He couldn’t look up for fear of what Negan would see on his face.

“Alright,” Rick croaked out. “That’s what it was. I didn’t- didn’t realize it until- but if that’s how you feel, we’ll stop.” Suddenly he couldn’t stand to be in Negan’s presence for one more second for fear he’d shatter into a million pieces, and he nearly toppled his chair in his haste to get away, but then Negan’s voice called him back.

“Rick- _Rick_! Fucking wait, come back here and fucking _talk_ to me.” Rick hesitated at the door, practically biting through his lip. “Please,” Negan said plainly, “please just sit. Or hell, just stand there and listen for one goddamned minute.”

Rick willed his shoulders to relax and slump, and Negan seemed to take it as a sign to continue.

“I don’t wanna hurt you, Rick. Not like that, not like I did. I thought- hell, I thought you liked it rough. That’s why I- if I knew why you wanted it like that, I never would have done all that shit. I feel like you think I’m in here plotting every move I have, lookin’ for every tiny fuckin’ way to make your life hell. And for a while, I did. I won’t lie about it, and I’m sure you know that. But _this_? This has never been about me hurting you. I just need you to know that.”

Rick nodded slowly, the words seeming to settle all around him, not quite sinking in yet. It seemed impossible. This was Negan, after all. No way that there wasn’t another angle.

He left the man to finish breakfast alone.

* * *

Not five minutes after he left Negan, Rick’s radio crackled to life on his hip.

“Mother Goose? This is Eye in the Sky. We’ve got a situation at the base camp.”

Rick’s heart skipped a beat, fear closing in. “What’s goin’ on, Tara?”

“Shots fired. Looks like people are mobbing up. You may wanna ride in and break this up, Sheriff Grimes.”

Rick was already sprinting toward Millie’s paddock, one hand checking to make sure his Colt was on his hip. “Roger that. I’m leavin’ now. Thanks for the heads up.”

* * *

It was chaos when Rick rode up on horseback, gun raised. He split the crowd by riding through them, voice strong despite his fear.

It didn’t look like anyone was down, but for all he knew they were in the infirmary already. Daryl’s crossbow was raised on the former saviors, who were wielding axes they must have taken from the camp.

“Everyone stand down, now! Drop your weapons- this doesn’t need to be a fight.” Carol was already ushering people away from the scene, ever the rational one. On the other side of the line, Alden and Regina tried to calm the Sanctuary-dwellers down and get them to lay down their axes.

“Justin's gone,” Carol explained when Rick dismounted.

“That’s because I told him to leave,” Rick replied evenly, one eye on the dissipating crowd. “Said he needed to be out with the first patrol this mornin’. If he decided to leave alone last night, that’s on him.” Personally, he didn’t give a damn if Justin was currently residing in the belly of a walker, but he couldn’t very well say that with this many pairs of hostile eyes on him.

“No, he's _dead_. Patrol found his body this morning a couple miles outside of camp. Brought it back here- thought you may want to see for yourself.” She frowned, her blue eyes troubled. “It wasn’t walkers.”

Justin's body backed up Carol’s words- the wound was fatal and precise, a single piercing blow through the back of the skull. Not from a bullet, not from a knife. Rick grit his teeth.

“How many people have seen this?”

“Just about everyone. All the Saviors for sure- they’re the ones that found him. Looked like he was on his way home last night when it happened.”

That explained the riot- Rick had no qualms guessing who the Saviors’ top suspect was, and the evidence only backed them up.

“I’m gonna go ask around,” Rick said. “See if anyone saw anything.”

He didn’t want to do it. Once upon a time, this had been his job- assessing a crime and asking questions to potential witnesses and perps. But now he was asking people he knew, people he trusted, people he didn’t want to believe had done something drastic that could disturb their fragile peace.

Anne had been with Michonne the night before- she’d rode home on the same patrol as Rick. As many ups and downs as Rick had been through with Carol, he knew she wouldn’t start something like this, and Ezekiel swore up and down that she’d been sound asleep in the sleeping bag beside him all night.

And then there was Daryl.

He had to ask. If he didn’t, someone else would- someone who didn’t know Daryl or care about him the way Rick did.

The confrontation went about as well as he'd hoped. Daryl's eyes narrowed as Rick strode up and sat across from him on a tree stump. 

"I guess you know why I'm here," Rick began, and Daryl met his eyes just long enough to acknowledgment to pass between them. “That wound- it's narrow, clean. Not from a knife, and definitely not from a gun. Kinda looks like an arrow.”

“You think I did it?” Daryl asked- less aggressively than Rick had anticipated. A good sign, for sure.

“No,” Rick replied calmly, “I don’t. But there are people that do. So I have to check.”

“This what you used to do? Before?” Daryl whittled away at the stick in his hands with a knife, but Rick knew his friend’s attention was still on him. Daryl was a man who like to keep busy, have his hands moving, and Rick knew the whole situation right down to Rick’s questioning was something that set Daryl’s teeth on edge.

“Sometimes,” Rick answered. He wondered how he and Daryl would have interacted back in their old lives. He’d probably hate his guts just like when Rick had first joined the Atlanta group. Daryl didn’t particularly strike him as someone who got along with cops, especially with his brother’s less-than-squeaky record. “You know I don’t wanna do this, right? I told that asshole to leave last night. I wish I could chalk the whole thing off to him crossin’ someone out there on the road and getting what came to him. But I don’t think that’s what happened, not with four other people from the Sanctuary still missing.”

“Why don’tcha just write ‘im off anyway? Like you said- ‘s his own damn fault if he left on his own at night instead of with the morning patrol. Ain’t no loss to us.”

“You saw what happened back there. People at the Sanctuary are gettin’ scared. And when people get scared, they lash out. We don’t need that.”

“Just cut ‘em all loose, then.” Daryl threw his knife blade-down into the soft earth between his feet. “Rick, you know better than this, man. You know what they’re like.”

“Not _all_ of them,” Rick countered, feeling the headache beginning to bloom behind his eyes at the worn argument. “They’re not all like Justin and Jed. You know that, I know you do. You’ve seen it. God knows we’ve had our fair share of assholes in our own groups. I’ll be the first one to admit that there were times that I’ve been that asshole.” There was a flicker in Daryl’s eyes like he wanted to laugh and agree, but it fizzled out after a moment, leaving Rick disappointed. “Shane was that asshole. Merle was.”

“An’ look what happened to them,” Daryl volleyed back, and Rick had to suppress the flinch. Even now, he hated thinking about what he’d done to Shane. What Shane had done to him to drive him to that point. Rick took a breath and pushed to his feet.

“What about me, then? I remember a time when you and I didn’t exactly see eye to eye. Wouldn’t hurt you to give people a chance every now and again, Daryl. Like forgivin’ the asshole that left your brother handcuffed to a roof.” He shrugged, letting his words sink in. “May be one of the best things you’ve ever done.”

He walked away, pinching the bridge of his nose and trying to find some calm, only for any hope of peace to be swept out from beneath his feet when Rosita came running up to him, worry on her face.

“Rosita, what-”

“Arat’s gone. Somebody took her while she was on patrol with Beatrice.”

Rick swore under his breath, body already springing into action to follow her. “Where’s Beatrice? Did she see anything?”

Rosita shook her head, dark ponytail flying. “Nope. Said they came up and clocked her from behind. When she woke up, Arat was gone.” She frowned, fiddling with the knife on her belt. “Good thing there weren’t any walkers around.”

“Good thing. Alright, three people in a group- we’ll fan out and search for her. Can you contact Tara and make sure she hasn’t seen anything?”

Rosita nodded. “Will do.” And then- “Fuck, man. Shit just won’t go our way, will it?”

Rick sighed and shook his head. “Sure seems that way.”

* * *

Arat was found later that evening by Maggie and Daryl- dead, with the same wound in the back of her head as Jed.

They barely avoided another riot, and in the end, the former Saviors collectively asserted that they were leaving not only the bridge project, but the whole system of communities.

Rick pulled Alden and Regina aside, desperate to work something out.

“What about all the people that moved out of the Sanctuary? Frankie, Mark, Tanya…you leavin’ them behind, too?”

Alden could only shrug, his young face tired and resigned. “They chose to leave. Others may, too. But we’re not safe here, Rick. You can’t keep us safe.”

Rick’s chest felt ragged and hollowed-out. “What about all the problems with the crops dying? You've got a lot of people livin' there, and scavenging isn’t enough anymore. How will people get fed?” He’d taken it upon himself to lead the Sanctuary into the future alongside everyone else. The people there were strong, resourceful…but they’d always relied on others to provide for them in some way. They’d used the other communities as a crutch for so long, and Rick had been trying for nearly two years to help them stand on their own to no avail.

“This is what they want, Rick,” Regina said simply. She reached out for his hand and gave him a solid, firm shake. “Don’t worry about us, alright? You’ve done more than we could have hoped for. There are plenty of people who can see that, but they’re scared, and a lot of these guys are used to being at the top of the food chain. Maybe this is what they need. What all of us need.”

“Dead crops and empty stomachs?” Rick quipped, his voice weary, and Regina gave him a crooked smile.

“A new beginning of our own.”


	11. Hurt

Rick stayed the night at the bridge camp so that he could be close if more fighting broke out. Alone in his ramshackle tent, he counted the seconds of silence that stretched into hours and barely slept at all.

As soon as dawn broke over the forest, Alden and Regina led their group back to the Sanctuary. The few people who had come from the Hilltop left on horseback soon after.

It was over. Rick knew it even before he went to talk to Carol.

She was in her own tent, packing away the few belongings she had with her into a leather knapsack.

“You’re goin’ back to the Kingdom,” Rick murmured, his throat thick.  _Damn it_ , he hated this, hated how raw and fragile he felt.  _You couldn’t bring these people together. The bridge isn’t going to get built._

It shouldn’t have mattered so damn much.

Carol, at least, looked apologetic. She reached to him, hand on his arm, voice full of regret. “I’m taking my people home,” she said simply. “There just aren’t enough left to get this done without the Sanctuary and the Hilltop.”

“Yeah,” Rick nodded, swallowing against the lump in his throat. He tried to smile, and even he could tell how empty it was.

“I’m sorry, Rick,” Carol said gently, hiking her bag over her shoulder. “I wanted it to work. I really did. You know that, right?”

Rick nodded, blinking hard against burning eyes. “I know.”

 _Weak_. He felt weak. The tears gathering in his eyelashes and threatening to spill didn’t help. He reached up, wiped them away, and gave Carol another trembling smile. “I know you did. Get outta here. Get your people home safe.”

Watching her leave just about gutted him.

He’d been foolish to think that was the worst his day would get.

Not five minutes after the Kingdom left, everything went to hell. Tara rushed up to him, eyes wide and worried. 

“Maggie’s on her way to Alexandria.”

Rick felt the world spin out from under him.  _Negan._  There was no doubt in his mind about why Maggie was going there. He ripped his radio off his belt.

“This is Rick Grimes to Alexandria relay one. Maggie Rhee is on her way there. Do not let her in the gates without an escort- repeat,  _do not let her in without an escort_.” His finger trembled over the button. “Maggie, if you’re listening…let’s talk.”

Michonne would stop her, of that Rick was sure. Michonne or Anne or Gabriel- though Rick suspected that Maggie was more than capable of getting Gabe to back down. It was just a matter of people getting hurt in the process and there was no way in hell that Rick was willing to let any of them get hurt, especially not over this.

Rick was halfway to the hitching post where Millie was tied when Daryl clapped him on the shoulder. “You goin’ to meet her there?”

Rick tensed. “Yeah.”

Daryl jerked his head over toward his motorcycle, parked along the dirt path that led into the camp. “C’mon. Bike’s faster.”

For the briefest, most fleeting moment, he thought that he had a chance. That Daryl was once again on his side. As they flew down the road, wind whipping at Rick’s face and clothes, a tiny spark of hope lit up his chest, keeping his eyes forward.  _Everything’s gonna work out. You’ll get there, talk to Maggie, everything will be alright-_

His heart thudded in his ears alongside the roar of the engine when Daryl missed the turn toward Alexandria. He leaned in closer, mouth to his friend’s ear.

“You missed the turn!” he shouted over the roar, and Daryl shook his off.

“Nah. Takin’ a different way. Faster.”

Rick knew better. Knew these roads and woods like the back of his hand after almost two years of scouting and clearing them.

“Pull over,” Rick bit out, and Daryl sped up. Panic and rage clashed in Rick’s chest. “Pull the fuck over, dammit!  _Daryl_ -”

The bike came to a screeching halt, and Rick scrambled off the back, heart in his throat, as he watched Daryl dismount and circle toward him, eyes flashing.

“What the hell are you doin’?” Rick snapped.

“You need to let her do this, man,” Daryl answered. His stance was cagey and tense, a snake coiled and ready to spring. “It won’t be long. Just let her do this, and it’ll be over. We can go back to how shit was before.”

Rick wanted to laugh, felt it rising hysterically in his throat. “You really believe that? You really think killin’ him is gonna change anything?”

“She thinks it will. ‘S her call.” Daryl stepped around his bike, crowding toward Rick, and for the first time in years, Rick wasn’t sure what his friend was capable of.

“I can’t let her do that,” Rick said. “You know I can’t, Daryl.”

He made a move to get around the fallen bike and walk back toward the road, but Daryl caught him, shoved him back and held him there. Panic crawled up Rick’s throat, and he twisted out of the other man’s grasp only to receive a hard blow to the ribs and another shove backward. “Dar-Daryl-!” Rick gasped out. He shoved his friend off, and then Daryl his him so hard across the face that his teeth ached and when he was tackled backwards again, the ground fell away and he lost his footing on a wooded hill slick with wet leaves and dirt. He didn’t know how long they fell, just kept getting jarred as he smacked into the ground and rolled again and again, the breath ripped right out of him. The world righted itself for the briefest second, but then they hit the ground again and tumbled bodily into a deep, muddy hole carved into the earth.

The world was still spinning around Rick even after he stopped falling. Every muscle ached like he’d been beaten, and he could feel mud caking his skin and clothes. It was with great difficulty that he managed to rise to his feet, heart plummeting when he looked up to see that the ravine they’d fallen into was more than three times their height. Across from him, Daryl’s mouth was set in a hard line.

 _You fucking happy now?_  Rick wanted to scream.

“It didn’t have to be like this, man,” Daryl said quietly, and Rick could have hit him for it.  _Yeah_ , he thought,  _it didn’t_.

“I didn’t  _want_  it to be like this,” Rick growled out. “I wanted things to work. Wanted to make them  _better_.”

Daryl shook his head, long, dirty hair falling in his eyes. “Wasn’t ever gonna work. Not with those people. Not with that guy still alive when Glenn ain’t.”

“It’s not gonna bring him back,” Rick whispered, but his words felt useless, rain trying to douse the desert. “You know that’s not how this shit works.  _She_  knows that.”

Daryl shrugged. “She’s gotta work that out for herself. She can’t move on like this.”

“She’s not gonna be able to move on  _after_ , Daryl.” It took everything he had not to scream. “How many times are we gonna do the same thing hopin’ that it’ll fix everything? It doesn’t change a damn thing. It doesn’t bring them back. It’s just one more person dead.” He sighed, the sound ragged. “We can’t keep doin’ this.”

“Sometimes people don’t deserve to keep livin’, Rick. You know that.”

“We can’t keep pretendin’ like it’s up to us to decide that for every goddamned problem we have!” Rick snapped. “It doesn’t fix anything. The people at the Sanctuary-”

Daryl spit on the ground. “Those people ain’t worth your fuckin’ time, Rick. Ain’t  _none_  of ‘em.” He breathed out hard through his nose. “I know who killed Arat. ‘N all the others that went missin’.”

Rick’s stomach dropped.

“It was Oceanside,” Daryl continued. “Cyndie ‘n Beatrice ‘n the others. Maggie ‘n I found ‘em. Arat was still alive.”

Rick shook his head. No-  _no_ , Daryl wouldn’t have let them just kill Arat. “What-”

“They were killin’ the ones that took out all their men. Those people, the ones that killed fuckin’  _kids_? They still live at the Sanctuary.”

Rick’s stomach flipped over on itself, nausea rising.

“Arat killed Cyndie’s brother. He was a fuckin’  _kid_ , Rick. Twelve years old, and she made Cyndie beg for his life. And then she killed him right in front of her.”

 _Twelve_. Twelve was how old Carl was when all of this began.

“We walked away. Let them. You would’a done the same thing.”

Rick slumped against the dirt slope, face crumpling.

“I know why you did all this, Rick. Ain’t gonna pretend like I don’ get it. But don’t you stand there and tell me that what Maggie’s doin’, what Cyndie did…don’t you tell me that it’s different. The bridge, you tryin’ to unite the Sanctuary? It’s all for Carl. It’s a monument to the dead, just like what they’re doin’.”

Rick felt something shatter inside of him and tears rolled down his cheeks. “It’s not- it’s not like that,” he tried, because it  _wasn’t_. Not like Daryl thought. He wanted to be better than the man he’d become at the end of the war. He wanted the things Carl had written about in his last letter to him- a world where they were at peace, where Judith and Hershel and all of the children raised in a world of the dead still had a chance to live.

“You’ve gotta let it go, man.” Daryl looked at him sadly, and it was like another blow to the gut, how Rick could see the pity in his eyes plain as day. “You’ve gotta let him go.”

The sob that wrenched out of Rick was inhuman, a wild thing made of pain so visceral that he was surprised it didn’t hurt. “That’s my  _son_ ,” Rick hissed between clenched teeth. “I wake up every goddamned day feeling like a part of me’s missin’. There isn’t a moment that goes by that I don’t feel-” he broke off, shuddering, and he could feel Daryl’s eyes on him, too intense and too much. He felt like an exposed nerve, so raw and sensitive that the lightest breeze made him ache. “I just wanted to make things better. That’s it. For  _everyone_ \- not just for him.” He blinked through his tears, unable to stop the words that spilled out next, the words he’d been keeping bottled up for so long. “I never asked for this. I never  _asked_  for anyone to follow me.”  _I don’t want this_ , he wanted to scream over and over until Daryl finally understood.  _It’s easy to pin it all on me because I was the one who stepped up when other people wouldn’t, but I never wanted any of this._

“I know,” Daryl said gently, and for a split second, Rick almost felt seen. “But maybe you should’ve.”

Whatever Rick could have conjured up in response was swallowed up suddenly by panic. They heard it a moment before it happened- the familiar snarls, and then a walker plummeted into the pit with them. They watched in horror as it slowly pulled itself up from its crumpled heap, limbs misshapen and flesh torn. Daryl lunched and sank his knife into its forehead, but the moment it collapsed at his feet, another one came tumbling down into the ravine. Followed by another, and then another.

What followed was a mad scramble up the wall, doing their best to keep the falling walkers at by while they tried to escape the pit.

“C’mere, I’ll give you a boost, see if you can grab that root an’ pull yourself up.” Daryl held his cupped hands out, and Rick stepped up into them. The root was a thick tangle mere inches from the tips of Rick’s fingers, and it looked sturdy enough to hold him. With a little momentum from pushing up off Daryl’s hand, he managed to grab on.

“Got it!”

Daryl let him go, and Rick braced his feet against the dirt wall, poised to pull himself up, when another walker stumbled into the pit close enough that Rick could hear its teeth snapping. Pulse pounding in his ears, Rick dodged it just in time, only to feel the root give way a little. His feet slipped, one hand still gripping the root, and he twisted in midair to try to keep his hold, his back meeting the wall. Another walker plummeted past him. A few feet below, he heard Daryl dispatching the interloping walkers.

Dirt wedged beneath Rick’s blunt nails as he clawed at the wall for purchase, trying to haul himself up to the edge. It was so  _close_ , just barely beyond his reach. I he could just find something to push up off of, he’d be there.

He found it a moment later in the form of a rock about a foot above his boot. He dug the toe of his boot into the dirt above it and pressed up, stretching…and managed to grab onto the edge, one arm propped up. It was a few seconds of fear letting go of the root and reaching up with his other arm, muscles burning, and then he was out, on his stomach in the dirt just above the pit. There were more of the undead shuffling through the underbrush toward them, too close for comfort, but Daryl was below, trying to keep the walkers off of himself. Rick reached down, getting as close as he could without tumbling back down.

“Daryl!” he called for his friend, and Daryl boosted himself up using the felled bodies of the dead. He had the root, which was still threatening to give, and Rick pushed himself forward a little more, eyes flicking between his friend and the dead snarling below them. “Brother, take my hand,” Rick said, hand just within reach. Slick with mud and sweat, their fingers met and then skittered apart. Rick heard a rustle in the thick underbrush around him, low, hungry snarls growing closer, and pushed himself just a little further, the bulk of his upper body reaching down for his friend. 

Then Daryl’s hand was in his, and Rick was grunting as he pulled him up, walkers so close that he could smell the rot. There wasn’t time to breathe- the second they were both out of the pit, Daryl lunged for the walker closest to them with his knife, and Rick went for one behind it. They both froze in horror when they heard it- gunshots, several of them, coming from the east.

“Shit. That’s comin’ from the bridge camp.” Carol and the others from the Kingdom were still there, and a new worry knotted up Rick’s insides. Through the trees, they could make out a pale horse weaving around trunks and fallen walkers with ease. Beside Rick, Daryl sucked in a breath. 

“That's one'a the Kingdom horses,” he murmured, shoulder-to-shoulder with Rick. “We should get back to the road an’ check on ‘em.”

Rick nodded, and something seemed settled between them. It was a short climb up the hill back to the road, and Daryl was just starting up his bike again when Rick’s radio buzzed.

“This is Eye in the Sky, we have a situation with Charlene Herd. Come in.”

Rick shot a wary glance at Daryl before answering. “This is Rick Grimes. What’s goin’ on?”

“The mini-herd that broke off is heading for the Hilltop. They must have gotten off-course sometime in the past hour, but they’re heading right for it. We need a redirect asap or else they’re gonna be in serious trouble real soon.”

Rick gave Daryl another questioning glance, and the other man shook his head, looking just as concerned as Rick was. “This ain’t part of the plan.”

 _Shit_ , Rick thought.  _Then this is really happening. Great fucking timing._

“I’m gonna redirect the herd,” Rick said into the radio. “Keep an eye on them for me, make sure they don’t break off again.”

“Roger that.”

He hooked his radio back on his belt and Daryl gestured to the back of his bike. “Hop on.”

Rick shook his head. “I’m goin’. I need you to go back to the camp, make sure everything’s alright. The Kingdom was still there when we left.

Daryl’s brows knitted together. “’S a lotta walkers to handle on your own.”

“It’s just a redirect. I’ll be alright.” He was a hell of a lot more concerned about Carol and the others at the moment. As much as he wanted to believe that the Saviors had returned to the Sanctuary, worry was alive and thriving in the back of his mind.

Daryl frowned, but nodded in agreement. “Alright. Be safe.” He started his bike up, the familiar roar filling Rick’s ears.

“You, too,” Rick said, and then Daryl was pulling away and barreling back down the road where they’d come from.

It only took a moment for Rick to soothe the startled Kingdom horse that was trying to dodge the walkers still stumbling through the trees around them. A few soothing strokes to her neck and a firm hand in the reigns leading her away from the undead was all she needed to be convinced Rick was safe to let ride. 

"Atta girl," Rick murmured under his breath as he swung one leg over the horse's back- her bare back, Rick noticed with unease.  _Whoever was riding her must have gotten thrown pretty hard if her saddle came loose, too._

He couldn't afford to dwell on what was happening at the camp now, and he knew it. The last thing the Hilltop needed was a sizable herd of walkers banging down its gates, especially while Maggie was away. With a sharp whistle and a quick dig of his heels into the mare's flank, Rick took off down the road toward the herd. The fork in the road where the herd had been migrating wasn't far, but he'd rather get them as far away as possible before more of them started picking up on the gunshots. 

Rick rounded the grove of trees blocking the fork and his horse reared back in terror, backing away from the second hoard of walkers pouring up the road to where they stood.

“Shit-!” Rick clung tight to his horse as it backed away, tossing its head.  _Fuck. If I can’t redirect them north then I’m gonna have to lead them back-_

Back to the camp. To the bridge that had grown unstable with the dam breaking, the river rushing beneath it once more.

He knew what he had to do.

“Easy,  _easy_ -” Rick tried to soothe the bucking mare. The herds were merging together at the fork in the road, all of them single-mindedly focused on Rick and the horse. Panic came when his horse kept trying to throw him, front legs pawing at the air to try in vain to keep the dead at bay. He felt himself slip, and before he could right himself, the horse reared up again, and he was falling, but instead of the dull pain of hitting the ground, something ripped through his side like a bullet, making him cry out raggedly. 

Disoriented with pain, Rick lifted his hands to the source of the piercing agony, his fingers meeting metal. He managed to lift his head to look down, only to see a long piece of metal rebar protruding from his abdomen just beneath his ribs.

“Fuck-  _ah_ -” Rick gasped, his vision going dark and blurred at the edges. He could vaguely make out the shape of the pale horse among the sea of the dead descending on it, but then it was gone, seemingly swallowed whole, and then the rest of the world faded away, subsumed in black.

* * *

Footsteps echoed down the stairs toward Negan, but he didn’t recognize them. Maybe someone new was going to be trained to handle him, like he was a particularly wily zoo animal.

He waited on the edge of his bed, curious about his new guest.

Except then there came voices, frustrated ones from the muffled sound of it. Two women. One of them was Michonne- she’d come a short while ago to stand guard outside for some reason.

He’d wondered why anyone would bother, but the second the door opened and it wasn’t Michonne standing in the low light, he knew. Honestly, he was a little touched that Michonne gave enough of a shit to try to keep her out, even if she did give in in the end. He’d bet his right sock that she’d only done it because Rick asked her.

His eyes dropped from her face to the long black object in her hand. It made a metallic clink when she set it down against the wall- a crowbar.

 _She wouldn’t want to use a bat_ , Negan thought.  _No, that would be too close. But she still needs it to hurt._

“Do you remember me?” She asked calmly, and then, when he didn’t immediately speak, “do you know my name?”

“I do,” he answered.  _The Widow_ , but Rick had since told him her real name. “Maggie, right? Glenn’s wife.” Rick had made sure he knew all of their names. Glenn, Abraham, Eric, Sasha, Maggie.

“That’s right. You know why I’m here.”

In the dark, Negan’s mouth twitched into a smile for the briefest moment. “You’re here to do what Rick couldn’t. Avenge your husband. Right a wrong. Eye for a popped-out eye. How am I doin’ here?”

It occurred to him- belatedly, as always- that he should probably keep his goddamn mouth shut. From what Negan had seen and Rick had told him, Maggie Rhee was not one to pull her punches, especially when provoked. He was sticking his fingers into the cage of something he wasn't prepared to deal with. “Got somethin’ right for once.”

“Well go on, then. I ain’t in any place to stop you.”

There was an overwhelming part of him that truly believed that she wouldn’t do it. It wasn’t until Maggie unlocked the cell door that it clicked.

Michonne had let her in. Rick was gone for the day, probably wouldn’t be back in Alexandria until tonight at the earliest. And standing here in front of him, green eyes flashing in the sliver of light that crossed her face, Maggie Rhee was prepared to end his life. She wasn’t  _The Widow_. This was a woman who had survived for years, who had held her own against people older than her, who had already executed one man that had risen against her and hurt her family.

He thought that she would need to do the deed in the heat of the moment, when the wound was fresh. After all this time, why dredge up old blood?

He should have known better. Those two years had only given her more time to plan this.

“Get on your knees.”

He slid to the floor, pain ricocheting up his knees to his hips. What did it matter? He’d be dead in a couple minutes. His eyes fluttered closed, the scent of sweat and dust in his cell pungent in his nose.

_You know this is what you deserve. This thing with Rick should have shown that to you._

_Rick_ , who had, for whatever reason, treated him with kindness. Spared his life. Turned to him.

Negan had thought maybe it was because he trusted him. Turned out he’d only come to Negan because he didn’t trust him. Nobody else would have done what Rick was asking- not because Rick didn’t trust them, but because they didn’t  _want_  to hurt him.

_You knew. You knew what this was doing to him, and you kept going anyway. Pushing him harder. You should have stopped. You knew it was hurting him._

He’d hurt Lucille too, but in different ways. How he’d kept putting off having kids. How he’d run off into some other woman’s arms for no reason other than that he could.

_That’s what you do. You hurt people. You’re the big bad wolf that stomps through their gardens and blows their house down. You did it to Lucille, who did nothing but love you._

There was the slide of metal on concrete as Maggie picked up the crowbar.

_You did it to Rick, the only person on this whole fucking planet that gives half a rat’s ass about you._

He could feel the woman standing over him. He knew he didn’t deserve it, but he hoped she got him on the first swing.

“Go on and fuckin’ do it,” he spat out. All of a sudden, he just wanted it to be over, all of it- the endless days of mind-numbing boredom where he wavered between waiting for Rick to come see him and picking apart his past mistakes, every wrong turn that had led him to here. He’d squandered his chance with Rick- a chance he had never deserved in the first place. He’d left Lucille to rot in a hospital hundreds of miles away. He’d led himself to ruin, and he’d had all the time in the world to visualize every mistake he’d made.

 _I wanted to be better than this_ , he wanted to say.  _I know it’s too fucking late, but I wanted to be better. If not to make things right, than at least to stop making things worse._

“It won’t be quick,” Maggie warned.

“Guess I earned that.” Negan murmured, eyes on the floor.

_Think of Lucille. Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll see her again._

When he spoke again, his voice was cowed, pleading. What else did he have to lose? It wasn’t like she’d spread the tale of him dying with dignity and honor.

“Please- please, I know I don’t- fuck, I know I haven’t earned it, but can you just- just tell Rick that I’m fucking sorry.”

He wondered if Rick would be the one to find him, or if Michonne would take care of his body before he got back. If Rick would be the one to bury him. If he’d care. If he’d have any kind of grave or if his body would be dumped or burned to be forgotten.

The levee broke inside him, and his shoulders hunched as he bowed forward, trying to hide his face.

“I’m sorry. The shit I did- to you, to him, to- fuck, to so many people.” He couldn’t count them all, but he could hear their voices clear as day. “Don’t expect you to believe me. Hell, I certainly don’t expect it to make a lick of difference. Fuck knows it’s taken me two years and you comin’ here to put me six feet under to say it, but I’m sorry.”

He should have said it to Rick, too. Should have told him the first time he felt a twinge of guilt instead of doubling down and lashing out because he felt weak. He should have given Rick  _something_  to let him know that all of the righteous do-gooder shit he was clinging to had worked on him, slowly but surely.

_My life has amounted to jack-fucking-shit. Maybe if Rick knew he’d gotten through to me it would be worth something._

It felt far too late for all of that, and none of it was Maggie Rhee’s burden to bear. Negan hung his head, eyes fluttering closed, and tried to conjure up an imaged to comfort him in his last moments. Instead, he just kept seeing Lucille on the hospital floor, tubes in her nose, skin grey and eyes unseeing.

“Do it,” he said, the last of his strength being pushed into the words. “Let me be with her again. Let me be with my Lucille.”

He wasn’t entirely convinced that he would be greeted by her on the other side, but it was the closest he’d ever come, and that was good enough. It was something.

He waited, tears falling and pattering onto the concrete floor like rain. “Come the fuck on,” he barked. “You’ve waited two goddamned years for this and suddenly you don’t have the sack to do it? I never took you for the gutless type,” Negan taunted, shoulders still bowed. Suddenly, the thought of her leaving him here was unbearable. “Rick told me how you did Gregory. You tellin’ me you can’t even muster half a fuckin’ nutsack to give me a little tap?”

He opened his eyes to see the woman’s boots shift away from him, and he moved faster than he knew he still could. His hands wrapped around the crowbar, overlapping with Maggie’s as he put the metal to his head. He could feel how steady her hands were, how shaky his own were by comparison. He looked up, thinking maybe if she saw his face, it would be easier. “I didn’t fucking hesitate when it was your husband on his knees.” Didn’t hesitate when it was Carl Grimes hunched over beside his father.  _I would have done it. I would have killed him right there, would have been the reason Rick’s the way he is now. Would have ruined him and laughed while I did it._

Something flashed in Maggie’s eyes, and Negan thought,  _Yes, this is it. Finally._

Instead, she stepped away, taking the crowbar with her. Panicked, Negan redoubled his efforts to hold on, only to have the bar wrenched out of his grasp.

“The fuck are you doing?” he howled, voice breaking. Maggie slammed the metal bars closed in his face, the crowbar clattering to the floor behind her. “So that’s it? You can’t even fucking whack the guy that made your kid grow up without a daddy? And here I thought you were the one with the cojones to get shit done around here-”

The dull  _clunk_  of the lock falling back into place settled like a stone in Negan’s stomach. Maggie tugged once at the bars to make sure they were secure before stepping away from the cell and collecting the crowbar off the floor. When she spoke, it was with an eerie calm that he found much more unsettling than her looming over him.

“Rick’s been tryin’ to get me to visit here since the end of the war. Said maybe I’d feel different if I saw you in here. I always told him that I couldn’t. Thought it’d make things worse. Seeing you alive and fed, hearin’ you talk. I never thought it was enough of a punishment.” She shook her head. “I was wrong. You want to see your wife?” Disgust was written plainly across her face. “You can wait. Just like I’ll have to.”

The door swung shut behind her, the turn of the deadbolt resounding in Negan’s chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im slowly catching up with my prewritten chapters please pray for me


	12. Ghosts With Just Voices

_“What is your wound?”_

Morgan’s voice rang as strong and clear as ever through Rick’s ears even though he hadn’t seen the man in nearly two years.

Rick blinked rapidly at the sight before him: himself, as if seen from above. Open hospital gown, lying in a terrifyingly familiar room long abandoned by the medical staff. It was a version of himself he only vaguely recognized, and thank god for it- he looked halfway to the grave. To think that Lori and Carl had seen him like that…

When he looked himself over, his eyes caught on the white bandage on his left side. Pain pulsed from it, so strongly that he could feel it. He clutched his own side and felt the warm gush of blood over his fingers. Outside the open window, the crumbling remains of the proud Atlanta skyline stood like monumental gravestones to the once-bustling city. 

 _Harrison Memorial wasn't in Atlanta, though,_ he thought, the notion idle and fuzzy in his mind. And yet there it was, the unmistakable presence of Centennial Tower looming impossibly nearby. The building's reflective exterior shone blue and grey like the sky and then suddenly wavered and changed, the buzz of a helicopter roaring in Rick's ears. He remembered it so vividly- the relief of seeing the copter's reflection, the desperation to follow it in hopes of finding other survivors, and then, when he met Glenn and the others, their subsequent insistence that there had never been any helicopter at all.

The copter's reflection multiplied across the reflective building, gathering and growing like a swarm of bees, the buzz overtaking everything as they began to race toward Rick's hospital window. His heart raced, the floor beneath him shaking, the cityscape blurred by the aircraft...and then, all at once, just like his first foray into Atlanta on horseback, they were gone. In their wake, he felt just as hopeless as he had all those years ago, that same singleminded desperation to find his family filling his fragile mind. 

“Wake up,” he mumbled at the younger version of himself in the bed. “Lori- Carl…you need to find them.  _Wake up_.”

The words echoed in the derelict room as if he’d shouted them into a cavern, reverberating in his ears until they pounded in time with the pain in his side.

Relief came in the form of a chuckle, and he looked up in time to see the younger version of himself laughing weakly and speaking to him with rough, unused vocal cords.

“Yeah, wake up, asshole.”

* * *

Rick jerked back into consciousness just in time to see the undead swarming his horse as it charged from side to side and then ran off entirely down the road. The racket only managed to draw half the walkers- the rest were still dead set on Rick, their captive prey. Reality came crashing back in like turbulent waves- the herd all around him, the way he was impaled on the rebar rod now jutting from just beneath his ribs, the imminent threat of being consumed alive by hoards of the dead. 

_I’m not dying here. I’m not gonna be picked-over bones for my family to find._

If he’d thought the rebar going through his side had hurt, it was nothing compared to the agony that overtook him when he tried to lift himself off of it. He couldn’t help it- he cried out in pain, the sound drowned out by the snarls of the dead closing in around him. Desperate and drowning in fear, he felt along the edges of the concrete around him.

_Something- something to pull myself off with…_

His fingers fell to his belt, undoing it and pulling it free of the loops with weak, shaky fingers. He glanced up, ignoring the pull in his side best he could, and looped it over another rod of rebar positioned little above his head.

_Don’t think about how long it is._

He couldn’t think of anything but the excruciating pain of the rebar rod being pulled back out of him inch by inch. Using the leverage, he slowly lifted himself free, mouth open in a guttural cry of agony that he couldn't have held back if he wanted to. He was sure he was going to pass out, his vision fading in and out, but then all at once he stumbled forward, free. Blood pattered the dusty ground around him and soaked through his shirt, but he could move. 

One hand on his side, trying to keep pressure on the wound, he stumbled away from the oncoming herd, tipping away and then shambling down the road on unstable legs. Blood spread across his tongue when he pressed his fingers to his lips and whistled long and sharp for the horse. A moment later, it came galloping out of the trees, fleeing another couple walkers. Rick grabbed for the reigns with his free hand, waiting until they were out of reach until slowly clambering back into the saddle.

It was then that he was able to see the sheer magnitude of the combined herds. There had to be over a hundred walkers swarming the road he’d been planning to take. It was too many for him to handle on his own, and pushing through or getting around wasn’t an option, not with the way they were closing in around him.

_Fuck, fuck-_

_The bridge_ , Rick thought suddenly with a heart as heavy as stone. It wouldn’t hold- with the rush of the river beneath it again, the tentative supports were likely to give way at any moment. A herd of this size would be sure to bring it down.

_It’s that or they show up at the Hilltop._

It wasn’t even a choice.

The horse turned toward the empty path leading back to the camp with ease, enthusiastic about the notion of retreating from the dead. Each rock of the horse beneath him as it trotted along the road sent a jolt of fresh pain through Rick as it jostled him, the wound in his side pulsing beneath his palm like a heartbeat.

 _Just have to get back to camp- get to the bridge_. Rick’s vision blurred in and out at the edges, and he felt himself slumping forward against the horse’s neck.

* * *

Fireflies danced through the thick August nighttime, flickering like Christmas lights, one moment within reach and the next in the distance, floating lazily between the trees. Ladybug, their long-deceased mutt that Lori had rescued as a puppy, raced around the backyard trying to catch them with an energy that only she could have on such a quiet summer evening.

“We had some good times, didn’t we, baby?”

It had been three years since Rick had last heard his wife’s voice with any kind of clarity. These days, he found himself occasionally wishing that she would turn up in his peripheral vision once again, her voice on the other end of a dead phone line like at the prison, just so that he knew he was remembering her correctly.

And now here she was, as beautiful as she had been in life, all the details that Rick’s memory had forgotten suddenly laid out before him: that little quirk of her left cheek when she smiled, how wide her eyes were and how easily he’d gotten lost in them, how much Carl had grown to look like her. Seeing her after all this time, her face warm and kind and open in a way that he knew was just for him, he suddenly felt the urge to sob. She was just sitting beside him on the back porch of their house back in King County, hair in long, loose waves around her face, and he couldn’t stop staring.

“Lori,” he whispered, unable to breathe. He reached out to her like he had so many times before, fingers running through her hair, unable to believe that she could really be here. There was so much he had to say to her- so many apologies, so many things he needed to tell her but never had the courage to, things that he always thought that there would be time for in the ever-present  _later_. “I’m so sorry. For-for...I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there and I should have been and you-”  _You supported me anyway. You didn’t deserve the way I treated you._ Tears gathered and spilled down his cheeks, guilt and regret swirling in him like the beginnings of a storm. “I couldn’t put it back _together,”_ he whispered, head dipping to look at his own hands. “We were both confused and scared and I did what I always do and pushed you away. I pushed everyone away, but especially you, and I- you didn’t deserve it. You  _needed_ me.” His voice was as cracked and raw as he felt. “I kept thinkin’ after, wondering if I’d have done something different...if you would have-”

He couldn’t get the words out. He didn’t like to think about it, that horrible what-if that plagued him to his day:  _If I’d have done something different, would you still be alive? If I’d stayed closer to you, been more attentive-_

The warm, gentle caress of Lori’s palm against his cheek sent Rick’s guilty thoughts scattering, all of his focus zeroing in on the welcome touch. It was a well-worn gesture between them, something that had withstood the years.  _I love you_ , it said.  _We’re going to be okay._

“I’m sorry,” Rick whispered again, his words dissolving into the nighttime, and Lori’s thumb rubbed against his cheekbone.

“I know.”

When Rick’s eyes fluttered open, Lori was smiling at him, her expression wistful and forgiving and loving all at once, and Rick couldn’t help how he fell into her arms, his face buried in the crook of her neck. He couldn’t stop breathing her in, the scent of her familiar and homey, her long hair like silk against his cheek. She held him like she had all those years ago when she’d been alive, and all he wanted to do was stay there with her in the home they’d shared for so many years, the place they’d raised Carl.

“I couldn’t- I couldn’t protect him,” Rick shook out, tears spilling. “Lori, our- our  _boy_ …” 

Lori’s slender fingers stroked through his short hair and down his back, her cheek to his temple. “The last thing I said to him…I told him he was going to beat this world,” she murmured into his ear, and Rick  _sobbed_ , the sound ripping out of him with force. She drew him back just far enough to look him in the eye, her hands cupping his face tenderly, thumbs wiping away hot tears. “He  _did_. This world never made him cruel, never broke him. You made sure of that.”

“It should have been me,” Rick confessed thickly. The thought had been plaguing him ever since he'd first seen the bloody bite on his son's side on that horrible night. Awake and sleeping, sober and not, it was always there.  _It should have been me. I wish it was._

Lori shook her head, the glow of fireflies reflected in her eyes. “You still have things to take care of. It's not your time yet, baby. You have our daughter to raise.”

Rick reached out with the hand that wasn’t bloodied, stroking through his wife’s hair, touching her one last time. “She looks like you,” he told her, “she has your eyes.”

The pride in Lori’s eyes was unmistakable. “She’ll have your strength.”

She leaned in, forehead to Rick’s own, breaths mingling between them. In a whisper just for him, she spoke.

“Goodnight, love.”

It was a tender kiss, slow and lingering, and Rick desperately wanted it to last. Too soon, Lori’s lips left his and she spoke again.

“Now wake up.”

* * *

Rick’s eyes snapped open, the world tilted on its axis around him as he lay slumped against the horse. It was with difficulty that he managed to raise up enough to glance behind him to see the herd still trailing behind them, thankfully a safe distance away.

Pain was still pulsing up his side, and the moment he took his hand away from the wound to try to right himself in the saddle, he felt a warm gush of fresh blood seep from it.

_Fuck. Need something to keep pressure on it._

Carefully as he could, Rick used his free hand to clumsily unbutton his shirt. He managed to get his arms free, the fabric now loose around his waist, and used the arms to cinch it around his middle, pulling it as tight as he could over the wound in hopes to staunching the flow of blood. It  _hurt_ , and his teeth sank into his lower lip to stifle a cry of pain.

_Just have to make it to the bridge. We didn’t get that far. I’ll find them. I can get there…_

* * *

Pink and orange painted the sky outside Hershel’s barn, but all Rick cared to see was the boy to his right.

Carl looked different than he had when they had first been here- older, his hair long past his shoulders and limbs more gangly. He looked just as he had in his last months, with one exception: when he turned to look at his father, it was with two bright blue eyes, no ragged socket to be seen.

“ _Carl_ ,” Rick whispered, awestruck and saddened by his son’s appearance. He wanted to commit this version of Carl to memory- happy, whole, and alive. He'd been fighting so hard to not let the memory of Carl's last few hours taint all of the good memories he had of him, but it was difficult. The last goodbye they'd shared was the freshest in Rick's mind, the trauma of it cementing it firmly in place, never to be overwritten. 

“I’m glad you had a pizza night,” Carl said nonchalantly, a peaceful smile on his face as he looked out at the colorful evening sky. “I’d hate for Judith to never know what the best food in the world is.”

Despite himself, Rick let out a laugh, short and surprised. “Cheese and bacon, your favorite. Though she likes her veggies a lot more than you did when you were her age. Actually asked for extra tomatoes.”

“She doesn’t know any better.” Carl smiled and ran his finger over the brim of his hat. “Has she grown into this yet?”

Rick swallowed hard, tears stinging the corners of his eyes. “It’s still a little big on her. She likes wearin’ it around the house, though. It falls over her face a lot. Sometimes I catch her pretendin’ to be you. Actin’ out stories Michonne and I have told her.”

 _I’ll never let her forget you._ The thought of Judith not remembering her brother was too painful to consider. That she would never know Lori was already bad enough. 

“I should have listened to you,” Rick whispered, all of the guilt that had been piling up and pushing at the edges finally pouring out of him. “With Siddiq- you were right. You were right, and I- I can never stop thinkin’ about how if I’d just listened to you- how you’d never have been out there. You’d never have been-” his voice broke along with the dam that had been keeping his tears at bay. They flowed freely down his cheeks, shoulders shaking, and there it was again, the constant invasive thought:  _it should have been me._

“Dad,” Carl shook his head, “don’t.”

“Not listening to you is the biggest regret of my life,” Rick confessed, gazing out at the rosy sky. “I thought I was keepin’ you safe. I thought- hell, I don’t know. All I know now is that I was wrong.”

“I’m glad I went after Siddiq,” Carl said gently, like he was trying to cushion the blow. “Even after…how it ended. It was my call, and it was the right one.”

“It’s not a call you should have had to make, Carl.”

“Nobody else would have. And I know why, dad. I understand it. It was my choice to go out there and try to bring him back. It could have gone how you thought. He could have been in with the Saviors or another group. He could have attacked me. And I knew that, but I just…it’s not that I didn’t care, but I just had this  _feeling_.” Carl caught his father’s eyes, a mirror image of his own. “Before mom died, she told me to trust my instincts. That if something feels wrong, I shouldn’t do it. You, Michonne, Carol, everyone else…you don’t always have that choice. You have all these other people to think about, to look out for. You couldn’t risk taking Siddiq in, not with what was going on. I understand that. But I had to go out there. For  _me_.”

Rick dipped his head, tears pooling and then raining down his face to patter against the ratty knees of his jeans. “ _I’m sorry._ ”

“You don’t have to be.”

The silence that followed was fulfilling, almost peaceful. The sky never stopped glowing in an array of warm color, and like with Lori, Rick only wanted to stay.

“You know you have to wake up, right, dad?”

Carl’s words made Rick’s chest ache, and then the pain began to spread, centering on  _that_  spot just below his ribs.

“Why?” Rick asked, knowing he sounded like a petulant child. “I could stay here. I could be happy here.” He knew what was waiting for him if he left- more guilt, more decisions that he couldn’t please anyone with, more loss. “I know I’m supposed to go back. Take care of things. I wish I could tell you I wanted to. That I was someone worth following. But I’m tired, son.”

He’d been tired for years, long before Carl had been laid in the ground, long before Negan. All he wanted was to rest, but even as he said it, he knew what was coming next.

He wasn’t ready for it.

“Dad.”

Rick pulled Carl to him, wrapped his son in his arms one last time, nearly knocking the hat off his head in the process.  _I’m sorry_ , he thought again and again, even as Carl’s voice rang in his ears trying to drown it out.

“You have to wake up.”

* * *

Rick was shocked back into consciousness by his body hitting the ground with a thorough  _smack_  that rattled his teeth and made his bones ache. Disoriented and hazy from blood loss, it took him a moment to get his bearings and figure out where he was.

There were the tents they’d camped out in overnight, now abandoned. There was the fire pit full of ashes and blackened logs, the footpaths through the dirt and leaves they’d worn into the ground over the last month. The horse, after so many trips back and forth, had remembered the way back to the camp.

Unfortunately, the herd hadn’t been lost along the way and was now streaming through the trees, ants out of a trampled hill. It was with difficulty that Rick fumbled for his gun and managed to fire on the ones that were dangerously close to himself. He bodies fell like downed trees to the forest floor, but they just kept coming.

With his horse long gone, Rick was the only living thing for them to focus on, and he could only hope that he could use that to his advantage.

If anyone was to see him lurching out of the woods, soaked in blood and sweat and caked in dirt from head to toe, they’d likely mistake him for one of the dead following him toward the unfinished bridge like the pied piper.

When he finally reached the abandoned construction site, he was relieved to see that the river rushing beneath the bridge had yet to make it collapse.

_This can work. I just gotta get to the other side- there’s no way it’ll hold with hundreds of them trying to cross._

The damp wood creaked warningly beneath his feet as he stumbled across, the expanse of it now seeming monumental. Every time he tried to push himself harder to outrun the undead nipping at his heels, he felt woozy and unsteady on his feet.

_Just stay awake until you get to the other side._

The relief he felt when his feet his dirt once more was short-lived. Just a handful of yards behind him, the herd of walkers still followed his trail, the bridge seemingly unfazed by the enormity of their weight.

“No, nonono-” Rick mumbled weakly, his heart sinking in his chest.  _It was supposed to collapse. Eugene said it was only a matter of time before the supports gave away._

Apparently they’d both underestimated the strength of their work.

Panicked and desperate, Rick wracked his brain for options. He didn’t have the time or strength to try to take out the support beams himself. His radio was back where he and Daryl had stopped in the road, smashed to pieces.

The first walker off the bridge lunged for him and it was a near miss, with Rick’s hatchet sinking into its skull right as its teeth snapped closed near his nose. He cried out in pain, his knees buckling as the weight of the corpse sent him tumbling to the ground. Two more crossed the threshold, Rick in their sights, and he couldn’t get his hatchet free, the blunted head still wedged into the time-softened skull. Every time he tried to jerk it free, his vision grew dark and fuzzy at the edges.

 _I’m going to die like this_ , he realized with dawning horror.  _There won’t be anything left of me._

Suddenly the walker closest to Rick dropped like a fly, its body collapsing into the dirt. It wasn’t until the next one went down as well that Rick saw the familiar bolt sticking out of its temple.

He turned to where the arrow had come from and up on a hill, tucked away among the trees was Daryl, his crossbow raised. There was a shout of his name in a familiar, panicked voice, and he followed the sound to the other side of the riverbank, where Michonne, Carol, and Maggie stood wide-eyed and horrified.

“ _Rick!_ ”

 _They’re here. They’re all here._  The thought pulsed through his mind, rippling out like a stone dropped in a pond, disrupting the panicked thoughts that had been swimming through his mind.

Daryl’s arrows dropped a couple more of the undead, and then Rick saw it, the solution laid out for him on a silver platter.

They’d used explosives left over from the war to take down some of the larger trees to build the bridge, and since they’d used them sparingly in an effort to not draw walkers with the noise, there were plenty left over, still laid out with lumber and axes and shovels on the bridge.

Rick shoved off the ground and up to his feet one last time. There were three bullets left in the chamber of his favored Colt Python, the number of rounds memorized after so many years having it strapped to his belt.

“ _Rick!_ ”

The world was growing dim around him, his arm sliding in and out of focus when he raised it to aim at the explosives. In the distance, Rick saw someone moving alone among the trees, calling his name in a voice that he would never mistake.

 _How did he get his jacket back?_  Rick wondered hazily, confused by the presence of leather on the man that had only been donning Rick’s spare button-ups and t-shirts these last two years.

He didn’t know how Negan got out. For all he knew in that moment, the man was appearing to him like Lori had in the months following her death- haunting him. Maybe he was dead. Maybe he was running free, finally set loose on the world after two years. Either way, it somehow felt right that he was here to see the end.

“This is for you, too,” Rick murmured, squinting down his line of sight. “’M gonna save you.”

There were worse ways to die, he thought, than saving the people you loved. And that was the thought that kept running through his mind as he pulled the trigger.

_You’re all my family. I found you._

The click of the hammer resounded up Rick’s arm, but all he could hear was the eruption of the dynamite. The world went orange as the sunset sky outside of Hershel’s barn, heat enveloping him, and then there was nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title comes from the song Set the Fire to the Third Bar, which Andy said he listened to leading up to playing the scene where Rick finds out that Lori's dead. thanks for the tears, Mr. Lincoln. 
> 
> friendly reminder that lori hate is not welcome here and i will gladly escort you from the property.


	13. Buckle

In the hours that passed after Maggie’s visit, Negan sank into a sulk that rivaled his initial month in the cell. Blankets drawn, face to the wall with all of his tic-marked days, head so heavy he couldn’t lift it from the pillow, he mulled over Maggie’s words, recalled the exhilarating feeling of near-relief he had felt when he saw the crowbar.

 _Relief_.

It wasn’t that he’d never considered the thought before. It wasn’t even that he hadn’t vocalized it, because in the first six months, he certainly had, over and over again to whoever came down the stairs. He’d always been pressing, almost _angry_ that Rick hadn’t put him on his knees like Negan had been planning to do to him.

He didn’t like to think about the _why_ \- possibly because there were too many perfectly valid reasons. He was incarcerated alone, at the mercy of his enemies, for the rest of his life. He pissed in a bucket and hadn’t seen the night sky in nearly two years. He’d been defeated, his empire overthrown, and worse, the man who had lead the rebellion against him was seen as a kindhearted hero because of his mercy.

Negan was a proud man, and he felt he’d more than earned the right. He had protected people- a hell of a lot of lot of people- for close to a year, and he’d gotten accustomed to the New World Order he’d put into place. Being at the top of the food chain felt goddamn _good_ , and there were certainly times he thought he would prefer death to the way he had to live now.

As time went on, he began to find something akin to happiness in little things- the taste of fresh berries, a slice of fresh bread still warm from the oven, the soothing patter of rain on stormy nights. Rick’s face appearing in the candlelit glow just out of reach.

Eventually, he managed to start pushing the intrusive thoughts aside whenever they cropped up. He knew, he _knew_ that there was a touch of denial in there to help him along. It hadn’t even been a full two years- one day, Rick would realize that it just wasn’t beneficial to keep him locked up forever. Eventually he would start letting Negan out to do work around Alexandria, pull him to do manual labor on projects like the bridge. Negan knew better than anyone that there were more killers among the four communities than blameless people. And Rick was a man of the law- surely he would see that Negan needed some way to appeal his case, lessen his sentence. He wasn’t sure if his hand down the front of Rick’s pants counted as good behavior exactly, but if nothing else, it proved that he wasn’t about to assault him the first chance he got. That had to count for something.

He’d pushed those unsettling feelings down for so many months, and it rattled Negan to his core knowing that all it took was a short visit from Maggie Rhee to turn him back into that angry, caged man who craved freedom over his own life.

_What the fuck were you thinking? You really think there’s anything for you on the other side? You really think Lucille’s gonna be there in a white dress with her arms open wide to take you back? If there’s any goddamned justice in this shitty fucking world, she’ll be somewhere far away from you._

With a heavy fingertip, Negan traced the tick marks etched into the stone, counting them over and over in his head like sheep while his eyelids drooped.

* * *

When Negan stirred and opened his eyes, his cell was pitch black, only a tiny dark blue glow coming from the small window at the top of the door. Unease crept over him, making the hairs on the back of his neck tingle and stand on end- he was always woken up when people brought him food so that it didn’t go to waste. Judging from the hollow ache in his stomach and his desert-dry mouth, he’d slept for a good, long while.

Even more unnervingly, when he rummaged blindly in the dark, searching for a bowl or platter outside the bars, he was met with nothing. As his eyes began to adjust to the dark, he could see that the floor was barren.

He swallowed thickly against his dry throat and frowned, worrying at the inside of his lip. His dinner was always delivered around sunset these days, the light dim but very much present outside.

_Rick must still be at the bridge, and whoever got signed up for dinner duty must have forgotten. It’s one fuckin’ meal. I’ll make sure to chew Ricky’s ear off over it in the moning._

* * *

Something was wrong.

Rick’s chair sat against the far wall by the door, empty and unused. On the floor beside the bars sat a cup of water and a bowl of plain oatmeal that had chilled down to a gluey, flavorless glob. Negan poked at it with his spoon- it had clearly been sitting there for a while.

Rick hadn’t been the one to bring it, of that he was sure. It was in an unfamiliar green bowl, devoid of cinnamon or fruit like Rick always made it. If it hadn’t been for last night’s forgotten dinner, he would have let it sit. As it was, he gulped it down only for the oatmeal sat like a stone in his stomach that churned with a strange worry. Rick had no reason to be avoiding him right now, and even if he was, he always made sure Negan was properly looked after.

_Something happened to him._

He didn’t even want to consider it. It seemed impossible- he was Rick fucking _Grimes_ , for fuck’s sake. He didn’t die.

_Probably just takin’ the day off to spend time with his kid. Or he got stuck at the bridge. Maybe the rain brought a tree down last night and he has to deal with that. Maybe, maybe, maybe._

He didn’t realize he was pacing the room until later, when footsteps sounded down the stairs- but not Rick’s. In the doorway stood Michonne, haphazard sandwich in hand, grim look on her face.

Negan’s heart hammered in his chest.

“Where’s Rick?”

She sat the sandwich on the floor and gathered up the bowl from breakfast. Her eyes dodged Negan’s, but the way she grew visibly tense at Rick’s name made Negan itchy.

Without a word, she turned her back on him and made to walk back up the stairs, and Negan couldn’t take it- he raced to the bars and shouted after her.

“Where the fuck is Rick? What the _fuck_ is-”

He was answered by the slam of the door and the sound of the lock clicking back into place. He _hated_ that fucking sound on the best of days, and right now it made him want to keep screaming after Michonne until she came back.

He knew better than to think that would work on her. Michonne was a hard woman to read if she didn’t want to be read, but he knew better than to think that begging and shouting and throwing a tantrum would help him get what he wanted from her. But still- despite her steely resolve, he knew he hadn’t mistaken the flinch when he’d said Rick’s name.

Something had happened to him. He didn’t need to be adept at unraveling Michonne’s expressions and psyche to figure it out.

_He isn’t dead. He’s fucking not. He’s Rick Grimes- if I couldn’t kill him, nothing can._

* * *

Either Michonne was avoiding a second confrontation or she’d warned whoever was dropping off Negan’s meals that he was going to ask questions, because the next day all of his meals were delivered while he slept- which, admittedly, was most of the day, because whenever he was awake, he was thinking about Rick.

Of course, when he was asleep, he dreamed of him. It was insane, unhealthy, even. If the man he was two years ago could see himself now, he would have been sick. Consumed by Rick Grimes, _pining_ for him, and fearing the worst more and more as the hours dragged by at a snail’s pace.

He tried to tell himself he was just going stir-crazy being cooped up in his cell with nobody to talk to. That he was missing getting off with Rick, not the man himself.

_Why the fuck would I miss him and that pissy fucking attitude? After the shit he pulled the last time, why would I want to see him? All this time he’d had me here more than willing to kiss his ass, and he still thinks of me as the fucking monster under his bed._

It didn’t change anything.

On the third day without Rick, he couldn’t move from his bed in the morning. The stale air in the cell seemed to have gathered weight, pressing him down into the lumpy mattress and making every inhale a struggle.

 _He’s dead_ , Negan realized dully, and the thought pulsed through him like the ragged pain of an open wound. _The only fucking person on the whole goddamn planet who gave half a shit about me, and he’s dead._

He curled into himself as if he could somehow knit closed the hollow, desperate ache in his chest.

_He died thinking that I wanted to hurt him. He died without me ever apologizing for all the shit I said about Carl, about the people I killed, for the way I all but fucking gutted him and laughed about it._

With a shudder, Negan drew his knees up and pulled the thick quilt more tightly around himself. _Rick’s_ quilt, given to Negan when he complained of being cold during the autumn evenings. He’d delivered it so earnestly, folded neatly in his arms and freshly washed, smelling of laundry detergent. His fingers had rubbed against Negan’s cold ones when he handed it over through the bars of the cell, his eyes midnight blue in the lamplight.

_I’ll never see those eyes again._

Those perfect, chilling blue eyes that could leave him undone or unnerved depending on the day and the mood. They were probably clouded over by now, milky white beneath bruised lids. The thought made his stomach seize up like he was going to be sick.

Against his better judgment, he kept wondering how it happened. If it was quick- someone’s bullet to the head or the heart, dropping him in seconds. Had anyone been there with him while he bled out? Or had he been bitten, had he felt the cloying panic as death came slowly to take him over? Had he managed to get home, say goodbye to his family, hold his little girl one last time before she became an orphan?

He didn’t like to think of the alternative- Rick dying alone, his body growing cold for hours before some unfortunate soul from his group stumbled across his corpse and had to carry him back home.

 _If there was even anything left of him_ , Negan’s brain provided cruelly. _Maybe it was a herd. He probably went down swinging in a sea of them, teeth ripping at him and dirty fingernails clawing at his skin until there was nothing left to find-_

It was a small miracle that he managed to make it to his bucket before his stomach upended itself, and it was then, surrounded by the bitter, rank stench of his own waste and dry-heaving pitifully after the meager contents of his stomach had already come up, that he crumpled. Hot tears slid down his cheeks that were now growing scruffy again, and at once, he recalled the last time he’d felt this way- at the very beginning in the hospital, Lucille’s body lying on the floor beside her bed, twitching and snarling unnaturally, no light left in her eyes.

He was alone in the world again, and if he’d had doubts about what he’d asked Maggie to do a few days ago, they were gone now.

He didn’t hear the crack of the door, but rather caught the glimpse of golden sunset rushing in before the door could close again. The pleas came wrenching out of him before he even saw Siddiq’s face.

“What the _fuck_ is he? Just tell me if he’s dead, what the fuck is it gonna hurt-”

“Negan-”

“ _Please_ just fucking-”

“ _Negan_ ,” Siddiq repeated sharply, and the stern tone from the typically mild-mannered doctor was enough to derail Negan’s speech. “Rick isn’t dead.”

Negan blinked, his grip on the iron bars between himself and Siddiq stuttering in shock.

The doctor cocked his head, and the gesture and look on his face was so familiar and reminiscent of Rick that it made Negan sag against the cell door. “Why would you think that he’s-”

“Because nobody would fucking tell me anything!” Negan snapped, relief and rage mixing queasily and making his head swim. _Rick’s alive. He’s alive. Of course he’s alive. Why the fuck did I think he wasn’t?_

There was a tremor in his fingers that he couldn’t seem to shake. The hollow place in his chest still throbbed at the edges, the wound mended but the memory of the fear, the panic, still lingering.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Negan mumbled, cringing at how pathetic he sounded, how lost. If he dared look at the ugly war of emotion battling in his head, he may have conceded to being a bit hurt. _Hurt_ , _him_ , as if he had the right to feel that way. As if anyone here owed him anything at all.

Siddiq was still looking him over with those too-knowing doe eyes of his, brows furrowed just slightly like he was solving Negan in his head, the pieces slowly sliding into place. “We’ve been a little distracted. Eugene’s been dropping your meals off most mornings, but I guess I should have figured he wasn’t sticking around to talk.”

_Mullet. That long-haired, pickle-loving prick’s been ding-dong-ditching me with meals for the last two days._

I don’t think Michonne realized you would want to know. Or if she did, she probably thought you’d do that thing you like doing.”

“What _thing_?”

“That thing where you stick your fingers into open wounds and twist.”

Negan gave a mirthless huff under his breath. “Well doesn’t she just have me pegged.”

“I think in this instance just about everyone has you pegged.” Despite the situation, Negan couldn’t help but give a lewd grin, and Siddiq’s face reddened as he hastily rushed to cover his misstep. “Rick’s injured. He’s been in the infirmary for the past three days.” And just like that, Negan’s stomach dropped. “He’ll be fine. But I think that Michonne thought that if you knew-”

“That I’d rub her nose in it. Make it fucking hurt.” _Like I did with Carl._ He dropped his eyes, the strangest sense of guilt clouding even his relief that Rick was alive and relatively well. “Yeah. I fuckin’ get it. Sounds like something I’d do.” Siddiq’s silence spoke volumes. But- “Why’d you tell me, then?”

Siddiq shrugged. “Because I wanted you to stop yelling. And Rick’s going to be fine, so what’s it going to hurt? You’d have worked it out for yourself when he’s back on his feet and coming to visit. Oh,” Siddiq withdrew a neatly folded parcel from his bag and held it out close enough for Negan to reach between the bars and take it. “Here’s your dinner, by the way.”

Negan unwrapped it as Siddiq made his exit.

Fucking peanut butter and jelly. He sighed and eyed the half-empty cup of water sitting on the floor beside his bed, resigning himself to another thickly sticky sandwich from Siddiq. _I bet Rick never told him how I like them made. Why would he?_

To his surprise, when he bit into it, the flavor of strawberry jam spread richly over his tongue, drowning out the peanuts.


	14. Sweetest Downfall

Rick woke to white and gray around him, a dull pain in his side, and the too-sweet smell of dying flowers sticking in his nose.

“Shane?” He croaked out, his voice thick and cracked from disuse. Shane had been the one to leave the flowers, he remembered that. Said that the secretary from the station had picked them out. Was he still here? Rick could have sworn that his old friend had just been standing there talking to him.

“Shane? You in the john?”

The room was still. A clock hung on the wall near the door, but the second hand was frozen, forever paused just past midnight. He turned to look at the flowers the other deputies had sent, fingers reaching out, and the petals crumbled to the bedside table, dry as brittle bones.

Something was wrong.

“ _Lori_ \- Lori? Carl?” Rick’s voice hitched in the middle of their names, something horrible creeping in, a nightmare. Memories assaulted him- Lori’s wedding band in his bloody fingers, Carl’s face pale and missing an eye-

_No. No, no, no._

A minute later, Michonne and Siddiq found him on the floor, hunched into himself with tears in his eyes, disoriented but remembering.

It took another ten minutes for him to calm down, the memories flooding slowly back into him while Michonne sat beside him with his hands clasped in hers. In soothing tones she helped him remember.

“The herds merged. When Carol radioed me, I thought…” a shiver ran through her, and Rick recalled hoards of the dead spilling down the street after him, the stench of them all grouped together and then it worsening into the acrid scent of charred flesh. “Daryl said you didn’t want to sacrifice the bridge, but by the time we got there, they were already halfway across. And then you raised your gun. I didn’t realize what you were doing until it happened.”

Rick distinctly remembered pulling the trigger and the flash of light, but everything past that was black as ink.

“I thought you were dead, Rick. Carol did, Maggie, Daryl, Anne...the whole bridge had collapsed, the walkers were getting swept downstream, and we couldn’t find you.” Her fingers tightened around Rick’s, squeezing the life back into him.

_I could have died. Could have left Judith an orphan._

“Did it work?” He had to know. Had to believe that the reckless stunt he’d pulled at the bridge had been worth it.

Michonne made an amused sound under her breath, something familiar that Rick had learned to read back when they’d been on the road together- _of course you’re worried about that_ , it said.

“It worked. Most of the herd got swept miles downstream. From what we can tell, not a lot made it out the other side.” Rick breathed a sigh of relief. The Hilltop was safe, nobody had died. “You scared the shit out of us.”

Rick eased back against the pillows again, wincing when he had to shift his weight. “That wasn’t part of the plan.”

Michonne looked to be barely restraining her exasperation. “Why didn’t you radio for help when things went south?”

“I didn’t have one.” He remembered that now- the fight with Daryl, his radio cracked on the asphalt. Michonne’s mouth twitched downward. “It’s fine, Michonne. _I’m_ fine-”

“You almost weren’t,” she countered, slender brows knitting together. “Anne found you downstream. Bleeding out, unconscious. If she hadn’t gotten to you when she did… _fuck_ , Rick. I didn’t think you were going to wake up. Judith’s been staying with Tara and Rosita, but she knows something’s wrong. She keeps asking where you are.”

Guilt soured in Rick’s mouth, motivating him enough to push up off the bed and try to swing his legs over the edge again. Michonne made a sound of protest and guided him back down with a firm hand on the center of his chest and a shake of her head. “Oh, no. You lost a lot of blood, and Siddiq just got done stitching you up. He thinks you’ve got a concussion. You’re staying here tonight, at the very least. I’ll bring Judith by later, alright?”

“Michonne, please, I need to see her-” He couldn’t stand the thought of her worrying that he’d never come home. There had been a few nights since Carl’s death that she’d come wandering into his room, scared that he’d disappeared from her life as well.

Michonne’s eyes were soft and understanding, but her hand on his chest was firm. “I already got word to Rosita and Tara that you’re awake. She knows you’re okay. But she doesn’t need to see you like this. You look like you’ve been through hell.”

“I’ll get cleaned up,” Rick countered, though now that the initial shock was wearing off, he was beginning to feel exactly what his body had been through and had his doubts about whether he was capable of such a thing. 

Michonne nodded. “You will. But not right this second. Siddiq needs to look you over now that you’re awake. No more escape attempts, promise me.”

Rick’s eyes flitted to the door and then back to Michonne, who he knew was more than capable of manhandling him back into bed and keeping him there for his own good. God knew she’d had to do similar things before. “Alright,” he conceded wearily, the adrenaline trickling out of him and leaving his body aching and sore. His right hand stung and itched, his side still echoing that dull growl of pain. This seemed to satisfy Michonne. She leaned over him, pressing a friendly kiss to his forehead before turning toward the door. It occurred to Rick right as she was about to step out, and he couldn’t stop himself from calling her back.

“Is he dead?”

She paused, her back to him, and her silence was loaded. There was no question that she knew what he was asking. For a long moment, Rick was sure he knew the answer. He thought of Negan’s face, clear as day in the woods before he’d pulled the trigger. He hadn't really been there, Rick knew it. A ghost- just like Lori and Carl had been. 

Michonne’s answer shocked him.

“He’s alive. Maggie came here, and she visited him. She had every intention of killing him, and I let her in, Rick. I need you to know that. I saw her face, and I knew she wasn’t going to leave without it. But she left him.”

It made him feel sick, how relieved he was. He’d been so sure that Negan was rotting in his cell- or that they’d already burned his body. But he was alive, and as little sense as it made, Rick took comfort in knowing that the man was just a block or two away.

“Thank you,” he murmured, and in it was wrapped up so many things he couldn’t give voice to: his gratefulness for Michonne’s care, for her willingness to put the group before herself. For her staying with him while he asked for Carl and Lori, for looking after Judith, for doing what she knew was right when it came to Maggie and Negan. He didn’t know that he could have stepped aside and given Maggie the keys not knowing how things would end. He wasn’t upset that Michonne had let her into Negan’s cell- hell, really, he couldn’t have blamed her even if Maggie had followed through with her plans to kill Negan. He wouldn’t have liked it, but when it came to Michonne, he could never find fault with her intentions.

She nodded to him before disappearing out the door.

* * *

Siddiq’s touch as he checked and re-wrapped Rick’s wounds was gentle and welcome, as was his soothing presence. The younger man sat on the edge of Rick’s bed, taking his time to tenderly unwrap Rick’s burned hand.

“You’re lucky this was the only part of you that got burned. It’s not too bad- looks worse than it is right now. And I’m guess it feels worse, too,” he noted apologetically when Rick winced as the gauze was peeled away to reveal a mess of shiny pink dotted with blisters, some already weeping. “Sorry about that. If you need me to slow down-”

Rick shook his head curtly. “It’s fine.” He flexed his fingers experimentally, feeling the intense, stinging pain spread through the ruined skin. “Never been burned like this before.”

“It’ll be a couple weeks before you’re healed up completely between your hand and your side. You’re not ambidextrous by any chance, are you?”

To his own surprise as well as Siddiq’s, Rick chuckled. “I get by. I’ve injured this hand more times that I can remember. At this point I’m just glad I still have it.”

Siddiq’s mouth twitched up at the corner, mirth in his warm eyes. “You still need rest, Rick. You lost a lot of blood- it’s a lucky thing that Maggie knew what type you were and that Tara knew she was a match.” Rick’s eyes fluttered closed while Siddiq tenderly cleaned and applied a salve to his hand, remembering how Maggie knew. He thought of Carl, so small and lifeless on white linen sheets in Hershel’s farmhouse, of Lori’s pale, terrified face and their relief when their son woke up. “How’d you get the wound in your side? It looks like you’ve been stabbed clean through.”

“Got thrown off my horse onto some rebar,” Rick answered, trying not to remember the panic of being stuck there with the herd of walkers closing in. “Funny thing is, I got shot in almost the same place back before everything. Woke up in the hospital and the world had ended.”

He didn’t mention that he’d thought that he was back there when he’d woken up, that the clock had turned back almost four years. Michonne had probably worked out what happened for herself.

“You don’t have the best luck,” Siddiq noted, and Rick couldn’t decide if it was an understatement or if his misfortune was all karma coming back to bite him. “But you’re still alive, so that’s something. These days, that’s just about everything.”

* * *

“ _Daddy!_ ”

Judith raced across the room to Rick’s bedside, curls flying and smile bright until she stopped short beside the bed, taking in her father’s less-than-stellar appearance. Rick knew what she was seeing- he’d cleaned up best he could with soapy water and a washcloth, but even without the blood and ash and dirt, he still looked nightmarish: heavy bruise-like crescents beneath his eyes, cuts and bruises across his face and arms, a bandaged hand. Judith’s trepidation made his chest ache, and he reached out to her with his good hand. “It’s alright, sweetheart. It looks worse than it is. I’ll be home real soon, okay?” He patted the empty space on the bed beside him. “You wanna come up here? Anne told me you missed me readin’ to you.”

Judith nodded and clambered up onto the bed beside her father, cuddled beneath the crook of his arm. “I got scared you weren’t coming home,” she whispered, and Rick felt his throat get thick. He buried his nose into her soft curls, breathing in her familiar scent and trying to breathe evenly.

“I’m not goin’ anywhere, sweet pea. I promise. Doctor Siddiq’s been takin’ good care of me.” Flashes of memory assaulted him- the rebar in his side, walkers pouring after him at every turn, the flames that engulfed the bridge. He didn’t want to think about how close he’d come to not coming home to his daughter after all. “What book did you bring?”

Judith held up a thin, well-loved hardback that they’d read so many times before: The Teddy Bear’s Picnic. It was one of her favorites, just like it had been one of Carl's when he was around her age. 

It felt good, felt right to get back to something normal. For fifteen minutes, Rick and Judith escaped from the infirmary and delved into a safe, familiar forest. 

* * *

Maggie stopped by the infirmary to visit on the second day, her face pinched and worried in that sisterly way that Rick observed with fondness. She sat on the edge of his bed, hand on his arm.

“I shouldn’t have interrupted the relay. I thought it would be quick- should’ve known that’s all it takes for things to go sideways.” She shook her head, eyes lowered in apology and dark hair falling in her face, and Rick reached over with his good hand to squeeze hers reassuringly.

“You couldn’t have known.”

“I shouldn’t have risked it. Not for _him_ ,” Maggie grimaced. “You could have died out there. Easily. When Michonne and I got there, I thought I was about to watch it happen. I let my hatred for him cloud my judgment, and you almost payed the price. I didn’t even-” she broke off, shoulders slumping, and Rick wanted nothing more than to reassure her that he understood why she’d done what she’d done. “I’m sorry, Rick.”

“It was bad timing. I’m not gonna pretend that I’m thrilled about what you were plannin’ to do, but I understand why you did it.” _And I’m glad you didn’t follow through_ , he thought selfishly.

“I thought I needed to. That it’d make me feel somethin’- justice, peace. I knew it wasn’t gonna make things right, but I thought I’d feel better. But seein’ him in there, seein’ how weak he is now, everything he’s lost…I didn’t want to do it. It’d be a mercy killing, and that’s the last thing I wanna show him. There’s no way to forgive the things he’s done, but that man in there…he’s different. He’s not a good man, but he understands what he did.” Rick startled, trying to process what Maggie had said. “Whatever it is you’re sayin’ to him, it’s sticking. If I’d looked in his eyes and seen that same look he’d had that night, I’d have killed him. I know I would have. But he’s not proud of it anymore. He _feels_ it, and sometimes livin’ with the things you’ve done is worse than dying.”

Rick knew the sentiment all too well. Still, the thought that anything he’d said or done had affected Negan in any kind of way was news to him. But here Maggie was, and Rick had no doubt in his mind that she knew what she was talking about.

_Is it possible that Negan’s trying to change? That he regrets the thing he did? Did I really make the right call?_

It was a possibility that he hadn’t even allowed himself to consider.

“I’m just glad you’re alright,” Maggie finished with a small, sad smile. “We all are.”

 _All of you?_ Rick wanted to ask, one particular person in mind. He didn’t dare say it aloud, but Maggie seemed to pick up on it anyway.

“Has he been to see you?”

Rick swallowed hard. “No. I haven’t seen him since-” his eyes fluttered closed as he remembered the last time he’d seen Daryl- their argument, words and blows thrown.

Maggie sighed. “I think he’s tryin’ to work out what to say to you. He was real messed up after the bridge. Scared shitless. I’m not gonna speak for him, but I know he regrets what happened. He loves you, Rick. He may not always show it, but he does.”

Rick nodded. “I know. I just- I thought he’d come. After everything…shit, I didn’t think he’d be like this. Off lickin’ his wounds.”

“Ah,” Maggie said with a small smile, “well, you know him. I’m not sayin’ that makes it right, but it’s not that he doesn’t care. He just doesn’t know what to say to you right now.”

“I’d take just about anything at this point,” Rick muttered.

“He’ll grow a pair soon. Believe me when I say he’s got a lot of pride to swallow right now, and he’s workin’ on chokin’ it all down. Don’t be afraid to let him have it when you see him.”

“Yeah,” Rick murmured, I’ll keep that in mind.”

* * *

Siddiq let Rick leave the infirmary after three days, a fifteen-minute lecture on how to properly clean his stitches, and a promise that he would take things easy for the next couple weeks while he healed.

“You’ve got a whole community of people around you that are more than willing to help you out, Rick. I don’t want to see you doing any heavy lifting until I take those stitches out.”

Which was honestly more than fine by Rick- it wasn’t like he had the bridge to work on anymore, anyway. He hated to think of what was left of their month of labor- smoldering rubble surrounded by rotting bodies, no doubt. Every time he tried to breach the subject with Michonne or Aaron, they shut him down and insisted that he focus on healing. _“We’ll find another way to bring the communities together. We’ve got all the time in the world. The bridge was just plan A.”_

Judith was thrilled to have her father back home, immediately bombarding him with the plethora of get-well paintings she’d done for him in his absence. Amid the stack was a gift that Rick immediately recognized as being from Anne- a sketch of Judith in front of an easel, her cherubic face concentrating on her own work.

“Annie did that one for you,” Judith supplied helpfully, and Rick smiled, setting the sketch aside so that he could hang it with the others of Carl and Lori.

“Looks like she kept you pretty busy. You two do anything other than paint?”

Judith nodded with enthusiasm, practically bouncing as she spoke. “Yeah! Momma and I picked berries and did sword lessons and Aunt Carol and I made cookies and had a tea party and Uncle Aaron and Gracie came over and played hide ‘n seek. I won,” Judith boasted, and Rick felt a rush of warmth for his family, for all of the people around him who had rallied and helped care for his daughter while he couldn’t. He'd never once doubted them, but it was always reassuring to know that if anything _did_ happen to him, his daughter would grow up well-loved and cared for. 

“Did Uncle Daryl come see you at all?” Rick asked. Back at the prison, Daryl had always been so good with Judith- bottle-feeding her, bouncing her in his arms and making her giggle. _Little Ass Kicker_ , he'd called her. Rick had always been surprised and impressed by the rough man’s tenderness toward his daughter, but it seemed like so much of Daryl’s softness had receded since the prison had fallen.

Judith nodded. “He came with Aunt Carol and drank tea with us.” Rick had to bite his tongue to stifle a laugh at the thought of Daryl, with his leather vest and grubby cargo pants, sitting at Judith’s tiny plastic table and sipping tea amid her stuffed animals. “I don’t think he likes tea parties very much, but Aunt Carol made him stay.”

“He’s not really the tea party type,” Rick agreed with a chuckle, “but I’m glad he came to see you.” He placed the pile of paintings on the kitchen counter and glanced through the cabinets to find a half-full box of pasta and some freshly jarred tomato sauce. “Tell you what, Jude- how about we have a picnic for dinner?”

* * *

Spaghetti and garlic bread wasn’t the most picnic-y of suppers, but Judith didn’t seem to mind in the least. They arrived just as the sun was beginning to set, Rick with a blanket and basket full of food and Judith with an armful of daisies from their garden. She laid them tenderly atop the grassy grave that they both knew so well before kissing her palm and pressing it to the headstone. “Hi, Carl.”

Rick had to blink away the blurriness of tears in his eyes while he spread the blanket beside the grave and ladled out spaghetti onto their plates. It wasn’t half bad- as much as it pained him to admit it, two years of Negan critiquing his spaghetti every time he served it had done him some good. The oregano really _did_ make a difference.

It felt wrong to be thinking of Negan here, at his son’s grave with his daughter happily munching on garlic toast and telling him between bites about how she and Tara played make-believe cops and robbers all afternoon.

 _Wonder if he missed me_ , Rick thought wryly, _or if he’s just going stir-crazy from bot having anyone to talk the ear off of._

Rick would never, never admit it aloud, but there was a part of him- and he wasn’t sure how large a part it was- that had missed the other man.

* * *

The soft, sure thud of footsteps down the stone stairs was, in that moment, the sweetest sound Negan could have heard. He couldn’t contain himself- he was on his feet and standing with his feet touching the bars of his cell, drinking in the sight that he’d missed for the past three days: Rick Grimes in the flesh, looking a little worse for wear with a bandaged hand and some scrapes and bruises, but nonetheless alive and whole.

“ _Rick_ ,” Negan breathed out with reverence, and if he’d been more self-aware in the moment he would have hated himself for the desperate longing in his voice, the obvious relief. He couldn’t have helped it if he tried. Seeing him again after three days of fearing the worst was like water on a parched tongue.

“Evenin’, Negan,” Rick replied, his voice soft like he was trying to soothe a spooked horse. He dragged out his old familiar seat from the corner where it had been gathering dust, and it was with a pulse of excitement that Negan noticed how close Rick put it. He was within touching distance, the pointed, scruffy toes of his boots resting against the metal. Negan could make out the startling blue of his eyes, the white-gray of his beard, the thin, faded scars across the bridge of his nose and under his right eye, the freckles scattered across his cheeks. He could make out other things, too- the obvious bulge of a bandage beneath Rick’s thin t-shirt, healing scrapes that climbed his arms and danced across his face.

Terrifying, impossible words sat heavily on Negan’s tongue, and swallowing them down left a bitter taste in his mouth.

“Siddiq told me you’d been askin’ where I was.” Rick’s eyes twinkled in the glow of the lantern. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were worried about me.”

 _How much does he know? What the fuck did Doctor Dreamy tell him?_ Negan wondered. He shifted his feet, trying to stay nonchalant. “You know me. I go a day or two without anyone to bitch to and I’ll start climbin’ the damn walls. Fuckin' Eugene ain’t been much of a conversationalist.” The words sounded hollow even to him, a thin cover for the truth. Surely Rick had to hear it, too.

“Mm,” Rick hummed, “that’s it? You just missin’ talking to someone?”

The corner of Negan’s mouth twitched up at the clumsy flirtation. “You caught me, warden. My hand’s a poor fuckin’ replacement for your pretty pink mouth.”

 _I missed you_ , he nearly said. It was something he’d told Rick before over and over again, and yet _now_ …now, it seemed like too much.

“Yeah,” Rick murmured in that quiet, thoughtful way of his that always made Negan wonder what more was going on in his head,” I figured it was somethin’ like that.”

 _It was more than that. It was a shitload more than that, and I don’t know what the fuck to do with it all._ Negan’s chest ached with the heaviness of emotion caught there, ready to break his ribs and spill out onto the concrete floor. Rick reached for the hem of his shirt and Negan’s heart hammered in his chest as the man lifted it to reveal the bandage covering his left side.

“Unfortunately, I’ve got orders for no strenuous activity until I’m healed up, so your hand may have to make do for a couple weeks,” Rick joked, but Negan couldn’t laugh. Not when the evidence of Rick’s injury was right there before his eyes. It was through a thick throat that he managed to speak again.

“What the hell happened to you?” _If someone shot him, I swear to god I’m going to break out of this fucking cell just to bring him their head on a fucking pike-_

“’S a long story,” Rick murmured, dropping his shirt again.

“I got time to hear it, baby. I got all the fucking time in the world.” Negan reached out without thinking twice, his fingertips stroking over Rick’s cheekbones, his nose, his full lips and beard. The other man’s eyes fluttered closed, something like peace skittering across his face as he leaned into the soft touch.

“I- Daryl and I got into some trouble.” The way Rick hesitated set Negan’s teeth on edge, made him wonder what the man was leaving out. “A lot happened at once. Maggie came here. Some people from the Sanctuary attacked a group from the Kingdom. A couple of walker herds merged and started heading for the Hilltop because of the gunshots. I went to redirect them on my own and-”

“On your _own_?” Negan snarled out, the audacity of the situation not lost on him. “I thought you said _Daryl_ was with you?”

“I told him to go help the people from the Kingdom,” Rick replied firmly, “it was my call.”

Negan wasn’t impressed, and it was clear that Rick could tell, but he held his tongue.

“Anyway. I ended up getting cornered tryin’ to redirect the herd. Walkers on both sides and my horse got spooked and threw me. I, ah. I fell onto a slab of concrete that had rebar sticking out of it. Stabbed me clean through, had to pull myself off.” Negan sucked in a harsh breath, eyes flicking down to Rick’s injured side. The thought of Rick impaled and alone made his stomach twist unpleasantly.

“Managed to get back to camp and found it empty. I didn’t have a clear path to redirect the herd, but the bridge was unstable from the storm and I thought if a herd that size tried to cross, it would collapse.” Rick’s gaze fell to the floor. “It didn’t. There were some explosives left from downing trees, though, so I fired. That’s the last thing I remember before wakin’ up in the infirmary. Apparently it worked, but I got knocked around by the explosion. Swept downstream a little ways, hand got burned, lost a good amount of blood.” Negan saw his cheek twitch upward for a moment. “Good thing I ended up washin’ up on the shore and they found me.”

“You could have died,” Negan stated blankly, nearly unable to process the information. “If they hadn’t found you- if you weren’t made of fucking steel and couldn’t pull yourself off the rebar-" Rick snorted and shook his head, but something inside Negan snapped like a tightly stretched rubber band, the magnitude of it all suddenly crashing down on him. “ _Jesus_ , Rick, you could have fucking bled out. What the _fuck_ made you think it was a good idea to go alone? What about Judith?” Rick recoiled like Negan had slapped him. “What if you hadn’t come home? What about-” he stopped short, biting his tongue just in time to stop himself from finishing his sentence: _what about me?_

“I was tryin’ to protect people,” Rick murmured.

“What about protecting _yourself_? Fuckity _fuck_ , Rick, you’ve got all the self-preservation of a suicidal lemming.” He was shaking, something inside him on the verge of shattering into a thousand pieces.

Rick frowned, the lines between his eyebrows deepening. “Bein’ a leader means you’ve got a got of other people to look after before yourself. I know that’s not how _you_ ran things-”

“This isn’t about being a fucking _leader_ ,” Negan shouted, his ruined voice echoing off the stone walls. “It’s about you being a fucking martyr. It’s about you not giving a shit if you live or die. Fuck, Rick, I thought you were fucking _dead_.” His eyes burned, his skin tingled like he was being stuck with needled, and then the razor-thin hold he had on himself shattered. He crumpled into himself, sagging against the bars and sliding to the floor, his fingers still reaching out to grip at the leg of Rick’s jeans. “Three days. Three fucking days you were gone, and I was sure you were dead. And as soon as that thought occurred to me, I wished the Widow Rhee had finished the job she came here to do.” He felt Rick shift and stiffen, but he couldn’t stop. “You’re the only person I’ve got on this whole goddamned planet. The only one who gives half a shit if I live or die. I was fucking _scared_. I- I-” the words almost came, rising like bile in his throat, but then Rick moved and Negan wasn’t touching him anymore and he was sure that he’d scared the younger man off for good.

Then the sound of the key in the lock on the cell door filled his ears, metal scraped stone, and Rick was there standing over him, looking dazed and uncertain and perfect, and Negan was on him before he could stop himself.

“I’m alright, Negan,” Rick was whispering, but Negan barely heard him between desperate kisses to every exposed bit of skin he could reach. He ran his hands over Rick’s strong, solid body, trying to memorize every plane and curve. He breathed in Rick’s clean scent, stroked his fingers through short curls that were still wet from a recent shower, slid his hands beneath the thin tee to touch the scar-marred skin beneath.

His intention had never been to take Rick to bed, but they ended up there, Rick flat on his back while Negan undressed him as tenderly as impatient fingers would allow. Any soft hitch of breath from the younger man saw Negan pressing reverent, apologetic kisses to his throat, his lips, his temple. 

Rick kept saying his name over and over, sometimes reassuring, sometimes in a hitching moan. Such a beautiful sound, he thought- that chorus of _Negan, Negan, Negan_.

Into the safety of Rick’s skin, Negan pressed kisses that held his weighty words inside. _I missed you_ as he mouthed down Rick’s chest, _I thought I would never see you again_ as he parted Rick’s strong thighs and took his hard, flushed length into his mouth, _you scared me_ as he held Rick’s hips and his lips dipped lower, making the other man’s breath hitch and cries ring in both their ears.

When Rick came, Negan chased every drop like a desperate man, craving the taste on his tongue. For once, Rick laid there with him after, let Negan curl himself around his shorter frame, didn’t flinch away when he stroked his bare flesh with feather-light touches.

 _I love you_ , Negan thought as Rick panted and tried to catch his breath in the aftermath, and the words were equal parts terrifying and cathartic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! So just a heads up: I've been having a lot of trouble writing lately and I've essentially caught up to the end of my prewritten chapters, so updates may take more time from here on out. There's definitely more to come, though! Thanks so much for sticking with this, I appreciate all the support and comments so much, even if I don't always reply <3


	15. Deep Breaths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (mushu voice) I liiiiiive

Daryl came to see Rick the day after he got out of the infirmary. They sat on the porch steps together, shoulder-to-shoulder in the familiar, brotherly way that Rick had come to find comforting. For once, Daryl didn’t reach for a cigarette.

“’M sorry I didn’t come see you sooner. Ain’t got excuses. I was bein’ selfish. Didn’t want to see you like that.” He blew out a gruff breath. “I put you in there.”

Rick startled, eyes going wide. “No- Daryl, you didn’t-”

“I did, though, Rick,” he interjected, raising his head and looking Rick clear in the eye, something he did so rarely these days. “If I hadn’t let you go alone- hell, if I hadn’t dragged you out an’ broken your radio, you wouldn’t have been out there. When I saw you at the bridge…fuck, man, you looked half in the grave. And when you fired, I thought…” he broke off thickly, head dipping and long hair falling in his face. Rick let him breathe through it, and when he raised his head again, his eyes were glassy. “Carol just about put me six feet under when I told her. Damn near wrung my neck.”

Rick chuckled. “She’s kept all that fight bottled up for too long. Maybe she oughta start takin’ martial arts with Jesus. I hear Aaron goes, too.” A pang of sadness pulsed through him at that- Aaron, while he’d been doing better, was still learning how to cope with one arm. He lapsed into silence, and Daryl stepped up to fill the void.

“I said a lot of shit that ain’t true lately. An’ I know it ain’t fair, what I’ve been puttin’ on you.” Rick swallowed hard, eyes fluttering closed. “I know you, Rick. I’ve seen you go through shit you don’t deserve. An’ I know you do every goddamn thing for other people. For lil’ asskicker, for all of us.” He didn’t say the words Rick had been dreading hearing again: _for Carl._

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes lately,” Rick whispered hoarsely.

“Yeah, well. Y’aint the only one. An’ I know you’re doin’ it for the right reasons.” Daryl picked at the flaking paint on the steps, pale gray chipping away to reveal the wood beneath. “What happened to Aaron ain’t on you, man. We both lived in this world long enough to know that shit just happens sometimes.” Rick thought of Carl, of the bite on his side, and shuddered. “We might not agree ‘bout the Saviors, but I just want you to know that I’m tryin’ to understand. I am.”

For Rick, that was more than enough.

* * *

As it turned out, Rick coped with boredom about as well as he coped with any other stressor in his life, which was to say that it had him constantly on edge and ready to- quite literally- climb the walls. Siddiq and Michonne had taken it upon themselves to keep Rick shepherded in Alexandria while he healed, and while Rick knew it was for the best, it didn’t make it any less frustrating. With the bridge in ruins and their workforce split up, he needed a new project to work on, something to keep his hands and mind busy. He felt like he’d been working nonstop since the end of the war, and now that he was forced into bedrest and minimal labor, he was getting too caught up in the mess his life had become.

Michonne had offered to keep delivering Negan’s meals while Rick healed up, but Rick had waved her off with excuses about how it made him feel useful- which was the truth in a sense, but nowhere near the entirety of it.

Something had shifted drastically between them the first time he’d come to visit after getting out of the infirmary- Rick knew it and so did Negan. At first, Rick had chalked it up to the other man being strung out from lack of interaction and Maggie dropping by, but now…now, he wasn’t convinced. In the days following, Negan had been gentler with him, his touches tender and his concern focused on Rick’s recovery.

Today had been no different. Negan had been- well, _Negan_ , of course, but in a way that seemed to purposefully avoid getting under Rick’s skin in the way that always left him itchy, like he could dig the man out with his fingernails if he tried hard enough. The shift in mood wasn’t an altogether unwelcome one, but it still left Rick cautious and wary of the next blow. It seemed impossible, _unthinkable_ that Negan’s newfound kindness was a permanent change, and Rick knew better than to let himself dwell on what-ifs, but he found himself replaying his conversation with Maggie over and over again.

_He’s not the same man from that night- he doesn’t have it in him anymore. He’s changed._

He couldn’t afford to think like that and he knew it. God knew he’d already let his guard down around Negan enough- if he really began thinking that the beast had grown docile, he’d fall that much harder when all that cruelty reared its ugly head again.

With an empty plate in his hands and too many conflicting thoughts in his head, Rick stepped back out into the early morning sunshine, locking the door to Negan’s cell behind him. It was strange, the way his mind worked against him- back when he’d been working on the bridge, he’d craved days off to spend at home with Judith and in the gardens; Now that he was stuck in Alexandria day in and day out, he wanted nothing more than something new to work on and keep himself occupied.

When he got home, Judith was sprawled across the living room floor surrounded by an array of crayons and colored pencils and workbooks that Rick had scrounged up to help her practice writing. So far, her favorite words to write were her own name and ‘puppy’- Rick had forgotten how difficult it was to teach these things after so long. Lori had always been better at clearly explaining and sounding out words to Carl when he’d been learning to read and write. Sometimes he worried that he was doing things wrong, teaching her out of order or confusing her more, if he should be more concerned with Judith learning combat than reading. He liked to think that she was getting a good balance of both, but he still felt woefully out of his depth.

Rick was elbow-deep in dishwater when Michonne’s voice sounded from behind him, making him jerk violently and sending sudsy water splashing across the counter and Rick’s shirt. He whirled around to see her fighting laughter as she slid into one of the stools at the counter.

“Good thing you weren’t a walker. Christ, I’m losin’ my touch.” Rick managed a wry look up at his friend. “Maybe ‘cause somebody won’t let me set foot out the front gates.”

Michonne clucked her tongue and reached across the counter to steal an extra slice of toast leftover from breakfast. “Cry me a river, Grimes. Maybe you shouldn’t have tried to blow yourself up.”

Rick flicked water at her from his fingers and chuckled. “I’m so sorry I tried to save all your asses. Won’t happen again.”

“Jackass,” Michonne grinned around her toast. “Congrats on not burning this, by the way. Or did Judith make it?”

Rick bit his tongue, trying not to laugh. “Ain’t important who made it.”

Michonne gave a snort and polished off the rest of her crust. “Well, my compliments to the mystery chef, then.” They faded into a familiar silence that Rick was usually okay with- today, though, something felt off. He could feel Michonne’s eyes on him as he scrubbed plates and pans, searching him. When she spoke again a minute later, her voice had dropped so just the two of them could hear.

“How are you feeling? Really?”

“’M fine. Been through worse. It’s more annoying than anything. I keep havin’ to remember not to pick Judith up on my left side.”

“Hm,” Michonne hummed, and Rick’s heart hammered in his chest. “I was thinking more…mentally. With everything that happened. When you first woke up-”

Rick swallowed hard, remembering the cloying panic and confusion, how he’d thought he was back in the hospital in Georgia. “I’m alright,” he replied quietly. “I just- I was out of it. Saw some things. The blood loss, I guess.”

“You asked about Negan.”

Rick’s mouth went dry, and he tried to quell the rising panic. “I…I thought I saw him. Out there, across the bridge before I-” he shook his head. “I didn’t, obviously. Like I said, I was seein’ things.”

“Rick,” Michonne said, her voice unnervingly gentle, and Rick felt sweat prickle at his hairline. Somehow, before the words even left her lips, he knew what she was going to say. His stomach twisted in on itself, vision tunneling down to his hands submerged in the murky water.

“Rick.”

“I’m sorry,” he rasped out, his voice foreign and faraway in his own ears. “I’m so fucking sorry-”

Michonne was in front of him suddenly, hands clutching his shoulders, her face almost…sympathetic?

 _This is it_ , he thought wildly, _she knows. God knows who else has figured it out-_

Rick felt himself being guided to sit at the kitchen table by Michonne’s steady hands. When she sank into the seat across from him and cupped his hands between her own, Rick crumpled. He couldn’t look her in the eye- he hadn’t earned it, and even though he knew he deserved it, he couldn’t stand to see the disgust there.

“Who else knows?” he whispered.

“Just me and Siddiq,” Michonne said with unearned gentleness, “you were in shock, said a lot of things.” Rick wished desperately that he could sink into the floor. “Rick, can you look at me?”

He forced himself to lift his chin and meet Michonne’s eyes, expecting judgment and revulsion. To his utter shock, he found nothing but concern there. Her brows were furrowed, face drawn with worry. “I need you to know that this doesn’t change anything for me.” Hysterical laughter bubbled up and out of Rick, and Michonne frowned. “It _doesn’t_ , because I know you. I know the kind of man you are.”

“You don’t,” Rick rasped out miserably. “Michonne, I- the things I’ve been doing- I can hardly live with myself. I don’t know why I’m…” even now, with the truth laid bare before them, he couldn’t say it aloud. His gaze dropped back to the floor, eyes shuttered. “I thought- I thought at first I was punishin’ myself. For everything I let happen during the war. For Glenn and Abe and Sasha…for Carl.” Michonne’s warm hands closed around Rick’s trembling ones, an unexpected anchor. “But that wasn’t it. Not all of it, anyway. I- I _wanted_ it.”

And there was the crux of it, the horrible, shameful truth that he wished he could burn and bury. _I was lonely and I wanted someone. Anyone. And he was there in a way that nobody else was. And now…now, I’m in deep and I don’t know if there’s a way out. If I even want one._

He couldn’t say all of it- god knew if he’d ever be able to confess all of his sins aloud. But Michonne, despite the changes and secrets between them, still seemed to be able to read his mind in that quiet, wise way that she always had.

“You’ve shown so much mercy to people,” she began. “To Eugene, when he turned on us. To everyone at the Sanctuary who fought against us. To Anne, after everything she did during the war. The things she tried to do to you- you could have died, Rick. Don’t think for a second that I don’t remember. But she’s here now. You let her spend time with Judith. You never once made me feel guilty for falling in love with her.” Daringly, Rick raised his head to look his friend- his best friend, the woman he trusted more than anyone else in the world- in the eye. “How could I ever turn against you over something like this? It hasn’t changed who you are. You’ve put your life on the line time after time to save the people here.”

“Doesn’t give me the right,” Rick argued even as the impossibly tight knot in his chest loosened just a hair. “Maggie- she’d never forgive me if she knew. She _shouldn’t_.”

“I can’t speak for Maggie, or for anyone else for that matter. But you know what they say- let those without sin cast the first stone, right?”

The corners of Rick’s mouth twitched. “Thought you weren’t religious.”

Michonne’s smile was the same warm, teasing one that he was so familiar with, impossible as it seemed. “I grew up in the Bible Belt, Rick. Don’t have to be a priest to know a few verses.” She squeezed his hands one last time and let go like she was going to take her leave, but something stopped her, and Rick could see the hesitation on her face. “Can I ask you something?”

“I’m an open book,” Rick replied wryly, both of them fully aware that it couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Why him?”

 _Why him, indeed_ , Rick thought. Of course she would want to know why, out of all the people left in the world, he would choose Negan. It would be easy to say that it was hardly a choice because nobody else was looking at him twice. That it was only sex, just a pent-up need for release that benefitted both of them.

Rick felt that he’d lied to Michonne more than enough, though.

“He sees me,” he answered simply, astounded that the truth was even able to leave his lips after months of tight-lipped silence and lies. “Guess he always has. To him, I’m not _The Famous Rick Grimes_ , and I’m not just another person dropping off his meals. I think for a long time- since Carl, since Lori…I’ve been hiding. And for some fuckin’ reason, he can see right through all of it. He _wants_ to, god only knows why.” Rick’s cheeks burned and he stopped abruptly, realizing that he was treading dangerously close to something _sentimental_. Michonne nodded slowly, and Rick could practically see the gears in her brain processing and filing away everything he said.

There was no judgment in her eyes, though. Not when she stood and pulled him into a hug, not when she let go and let her hand linger comfortingly on his shoulder.

How he still had her trust, he couldn’t fathom- but he would gladly take it.

* * *

“What’s the weather like out there, Ricky-boy? It’s fuckin’ freezing in here at night, so I’m guessing it’s close to winter. That always was my favorite season. I’m fuckin’ aces in a snowball fight, you’d better believe it.”

“Oh, I believe it,” Rick replied, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Negan desperately wanted to tease a full one out of him, see the way his eyes crinkled at the corners. Instead, he settled for the casual closeness of Rick sitting right up next to the bars, close enough for Negan to reach out and trace the strong, thick muscles of his forearms down to the delicate skin between his fingers.

It was strange, touching Rick like this- like it was something he’d always done, like they were lovers discussing their day at work.

“I used to take my classes outside when it snowed. Divide ‘em into teams and let ‘em wail on each other with snowballs. As long as they were active, it counted as P.E.- that’s what I told the vice principal, anyway.” He chuckled, lost in the memory of it- the pure, crisp snow decorating the baseball diamond, the crunch of it beneath his boots and the sting of it in the back of his throat. “I always joined in by the end. Played for my own goddamn team. Or for both teams,” he amended, dropping a playful wink at Rick, who looked like he was biting his tongue- whether to keep from laughing or groaning, Negan couldn’t tell.

“D’you miss it?” Rick asked, thumb rubbing against Negan’s in a way that could have been written off as absentminded if Negan didn’t know the other man so well. Nothing about Rick would allow him to be anything but cautious and alert when they were together. He’d been watching the younger man’s fingers twitch toward his own for the last ten minutes while they’d been talking, fighting the urge to return Negan’s affection. That Rick finally allowed himself to act on that instinct was something Negan didn’t take for granted.

“Teaching? Shit, yeah. I always liked kids. I was too much of a fuckin’ coward to have any of my own while I had the chance, but…yeah. Yeah, I fucking loved teaching.” Negan looked up at Rick with warm, teasing hazel eyes that he hoped didn’t betray just how serious he was. “If you ever want to let your little girl come visit so I can teach her how to throw a curveball, I’d be pleased as fuckin’ punch.”

Immediately- _predictably_ \- Negan could see the war going on behind Rick’s crystal eyes, the urge to immediately shut Negan down when his children were mentioned versus keeping the peace between them. It struck Negan then that maybe he should be the one to go out on a limb- it seemed that Rick was always the one with something to lose, always putting himself at risk for Negan’s sake. Or the sake of what they were doing together, anyway.

It was strange- Negan never thought of apologizing as being something difficult for him. He was a man of pride, for sure, but he knew how to apologize with dignity, keeping his head up all the while. Maybe that was the reason he’d never broached the subject with Rick before now- after the things he’d said and done, there was no way to keep his ego intact.

“I owe you a lot of things, Rick,” Negan began quietly. There was something about Rick’s own solid, reserved way of being that made Negan want to be genuine with him in these moments between them. There was no one else here, and Rick wasn’t someone Negan could impress with showmanship. “Fuck knows that if I tried to get into everything I ought to be apologizing to you for, we’d be sitting here all goddamned day.” He was staring determinedly at Rick’s hand where they were touching, thumb running along the tendons. Rick was looking at him- he could feel it, but he couldn’t bring himself to meet the younger man’s eyes. “The things I said to you- about Carl-” Rick visibly tensed, fingers digging into his thigh and crumpling his ragged jeans. “I can’t ever take that shit back, and I know it. Callin’ it a low blow doesn’t even begin to cover it. That was your boy- your fucking badass, rad-as-hell kid, and I fucking…I shouldn’t have said a goddamned thing.”

“You weren’t wrong, though,” Rick replied in a barely there whisper that Negan had to strain to hear. “About it bein’…bein’ my fault.”

Something clicked into place then, and suddenly Negan _saw_ Rick- saw what he’d been doing to the younger man for so long, jamming his thumbs into the cracks in the man’s fragile psyche and pulling until they grew. The need for punishment, the risks he’d been taking, the complete disregard for himself. Negan had dragged him there by the collar and then been pleased when, dying of thirst, Rick had drank for him.

“Rick,” Negan whispered, awestruck and horrified at the mess he’d made of the other man. “Rick, you can’t really fuckin’ think-”

“I _can_ ,” Rick cried raggedly, the tears already pouring down his flushed face. It was a wonder, Negan thought, that he hadn’t broken like this a long time ago. “I didn’t need you to tell me. I already fucking knew- I _knew_ it was my fault. Every single goddamned day I wake up and it’s all I can think about. Everything I could’ve done different, everything that could have kept him alive…I’ve been through it all over and over again. The only reason I kept goin’ after- after what happened- it was for Judith, for everyone here that I owed it to. All the people whose memories I owed it to. Glenn, Abe, Sasha, Eric…” Rick’s shoulders shuddered and hunched forward like he was trying to physically hold himself together, and Negan ached, wanting nothing more than to take some of the burden from the younger man.

“Rick,” Negan murmured, trying to reach for his hand and coming up short.

“I don’t know how to put it back together.” To Negan, it sounded like Rick was the one who needed to be stitched back into something whole. “I don’t think I can anymore. I- I saw him. Carl. When I was injured. I kept fading in and out, and I saw him.” Negan blinked hard, trying to understand. “Him, Lori…myself, from years ago.” He managed to raise his head just enough for Negan to see how wet and bloodshot his eyes were. “And you. I saw you by the bridge right before I…” he trailed off curiously, asking the question they both knew the answer to already.

“I wasn’t there, Rick,” Negan said gently _. If I was, I wouldn’t have let you almost blow yourself into the next goddamned century. And who knows where we’d be then._

“I know,” Rick rasped out, shaking his head as if to clear it. “I know that. But I saw you. Right before I pulled the trigger, and I thought-” he broke off suddenly, and Negan would have given anything to hear the rest. “I don’t know. I don’t fucking know anything anymore, that’s clear to me. I don’t know what I’m doin’, how to make things right.”

“You don’t have to. _No_ \- Rick, listen to me for a fucking minute,” Negan said urgently. “You don’t have a single goddamned thing you need to make right, do you hear me? What happened to Carl wasn’t your fault. I never believed it was, not for a fuckin’ second. You’d have given your right arm for that boy- fucking _literally_ , you tried to do that shit. And you would have, too. I could see that the first moment I realized who he was to you, and I used it against you. I used it to break you, used it to keep you in line, used it in any way I could, because that’s the kind of man I was. I did whatever I could to keep myself on top, and you were one of the people that paid the price.”

Rick’s head was bowed again, shoulder trembling with silent sobs, and Negan pressed himself painfully against the bars to reach out to him and put a hand on his arm. “You’re a good father, Rick. You loved that kid more than anything in the entire goddamned world, and the world repaid you by shitting all over you. You didn’t deserve it, and neither did he.”

Rick let out a wretched, broken sob and sank to the floor, leaning against the bars of Negan’s cage like it was the only thing keeping him from collapsing completely. Negan held him the best he could through the iron, forehead pressed to the younger man’s temple, arms cradling his shaking frame.

“This shit fucking happen all the time. I mean, hell, they used to happen in the old world, too. Fuckin’ school shooters and crazy people with vendettas and rage and desperate people lookin’ to take what they can wherever they can get it. All that crazy’s just been blown out of proportion, you know? And then there’s the dead, and hell, even the best of us make mistakes. That’s all it takes- one fuckin’ second, and it’s over. It ain’t anybody’s fault, Rick. It’s definitely not yours.”

“I told him once, a long time ago, that he was never safe.” Rick sounded faraway, travelling back to a time before Negan. “I wanted him to be aware, wanted him to look out for himself and Judith above everyone else. He- he was a smart kid. He knew that already. But he looked out for other people, too.” He sniffed and wiped fruitlessly at his eyes. “His mother would have been proud of him. I know she is. I am.”

“I’m sorry, Rick,” Negan murmured into Rick’s curls, “I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”

They were quiet for a long time after that, Rick’s body slowly growing calm, his sobs subsiding into heavy, slow breaths. Negan held him like that, the bars digging uncomfortably into his neck and shoulder, but he couldn’t care less.


	16. Stains

“ _Oh_ my God, Grimes. How much longer until we get there? If I have to listen to any more Willie Nelson, I’m gonna throw myself out the door and take my chances with the walkers.”

The corner of Rick’s mouth twitched up into a smile, and he blindly reached over to the passenger side to playfully shove at Tara’s shoulder. “Shouldn’t be long now. Michonne said it’s a half-mile off Cedarcrest. And consider this payback for makin’ me listen to whatever the hell that was on the drive to that military base.”

Tara _humphed_ good-naturedly, kicking her feet up on the dashboard. “It was No Doubt, you dinosaur. Are you seriously going to tell me you’ve never heard of Gwen Stefani?”

“Is she the one with the banana song?”

Tara’s dramatic sigh echoed in Rick’s ears, making him chuckle. “Fucking country bumpkin,” she muttered, but it was with an abundance of affection.

“I seem to recall you volunteering to ride with this _fucking country bumpkin_ to go get more sorghum. Seemed pretty eager, if I’m rememberin’ right-”

Tara waved him off, grinning. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t gonna pull another Big Hero move and come home looking like Carrie. Siddiq just about lost his shit when he saw you, you know.” Something in Tara’s voice made Rick shift in his seat. “You swing that way, don’t you? I mean, my gaydar’s mostly tuned in to girls, for obvious reasons, but I have about seventy percent accuracy on guys, too.”

Rick worried his lip, heat crawling across his face despite the crisp breeze rolling in through the cracked windows. “I, ah. Yeah. I mean- I do. But it’s not- I’m not…looking for anyone _.” And if Siddiq was ever interested, I doubt he is now that he knows about me and Negan._

He could feel Tara frowning at him from the passenger side. “You mind if I ask why not? I mean…I know you lost your wife back at the prison. I’m not making light of that. But that’s a long time to be on your own, Mother Goose. If you’re looking-”

“We’re here,” Rick cut in, relieved to have a reason to stop Tara’s line of questioning in its tracks. He braked in front of the aluminum-walled barn that Rosita and Eugene had found a couple days ago while scrounging down side roads and dirt paths. Scavenging trips, even the long ones where people crossed state lines, turned up less and less these days, and finding this little gem nestled in the woods just a couple hours out from Alexandria had been like unearthing a goldmine. The house had been stripped to the bones by Rosita and Eugene and the small paddock had long since been emptied of animals, but there was still sorghum and animal feed piled high in the barn, ripe for the taking.

Getting inside was easy- the lock lay broken and rusted in the overgrown dandelions framing the barn, and by the time Rick had the truck backed up to the doors, Tara already had a sack slung over her shoulder.

“Maggie’s gonna flip when she sees all of this! She and Jesus have been biting their nails for weeks about winter crops and stockpiling.”

Rick smiled as he watched Tara toss the heavy sack into the back of the truck. “And you haven’t been?”

Tara flashed a hand in Rick’s face, wiggling her fingers to show off trimmed, clean nails. “I keep mine short, Mother Goose, but it sure isn’t because I’m stressed about sorghum and canned peaches,” she answered with a suggestive smirk, and Rick laughed even as he felt his cheeks color.

The next twenty minutes went smoothly, and despite the crispness of the air, they both end up drenched in sweat from hauling sack after heavy sack into the truck. After Rick tossed in the last one and Tara latched the back of the truck closed, they both sank onto one of the musty, half-bound hay bales littering the floor of the barn.

“If Siddiq knew how much lifting you did he’d have a coronary,” Tara declared after taking a deep swig of water from their shared canteen. She passed it to Rick, who gratefully drank, savoring the coolness on his parched tongue.

“As much as I pick Jude up and haul mulch around at home, I think he knew that I’d be alright.” Rick’s fingers slid beneath his thin, sweat-soaked tee to prod at the thick scar tissue beginning to form over the wound in his side. The healing process had been a nasty thing- gauze and oozing and Siddiq insisting on regular bedrest and bandage changes. Most of the pain was gone now unless he wanted to dig his fingers into the shiny pink skin still trying to heal. His hand had spiderwebs of burn scars as far up as his wrist, but he was back to doing things right-handed again.

“How is Jude, by the way? I miss seeing her now that I’m at the Hilltop so much. Hell, I miss all of you guys.” Tara dug the toe of her boot into the dust and dirt covering the barn floor. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love it there. I never thought of myself as much of a leader, you know? I’m more of a fall-in-line-soldier kind of girl.” There was a flicker of something on her face- something a little haunted, and Rick immediately knew where her mind was. He reached out and covered her hand with his own, giving it a squeeze.

“You’ve got a mind of your own, Tara. Always have. You’ve got a good heart. Don’t discount that.”

The corner of Tara’s mouth tugged up just slightly. “It’s just weird, you know? Having people look to you. I guess I don’t have to tell you that. And it’s not anything like you and Maggie do…but it’s different.”

“Jesus said you’ve been leading a lot of redirects. Said you have ‘ _a voice for the people_ ’.”

Tara snorted. “He means I’m not afraid to tell asshole teenagers to get their shit together.”

“Hey, that’s most of what you would’ve been doin’ if you ended up bein’ a cop. Sometimes those asshole teenagers are thirty-year-old assholes, but the attitude’s the same, mostly.”

Rick felt Tara go still and rigid beside him the same moment he heard it- voices, faint but unmistakable, coming from outside the barn. In the dim light, Tara’s eyes met Rick’s own, a silent plan of action forming between them. In moments, they were both on their feet, backs flat against the barn wall and eyes glued to the cracked door that the voices were nearing. Rick’s gun was already in his hand, finger still and calm on the trigger.

It all happened in a matter of seconds- a gunshot piercing the delicate silence and ripping into the barn wall through the crack in the door. Rick and Tara both dove to the ground, Rick instinctively jumping between Tara and the door, his body folding over hers.

“You assholes wanna come out of there?” a man’s rough voice called out, and they both tensed, minds reeling and trying to get their bearings again, when the heavy barn door was shoved the rest of the way open.

Rick only had time to see that it was four men storming the barn before they were fired on again- this time a warning shot above his head that he just barely ducked. The man who had fired chuckled upon seeing Rick and Tara hunched together among the hay. “Looks like you lovebirds picked the wrong fucking nest, didn’tcha?”

From beneath Rick, Tara huffed a quiet laugh. “Not exactly, jackass.”

“What was that, sweetheart? You oughta speak up-” the man broke off mid-sentence when he saw it- Rick’s pistol clenched firmly in his hand, and he clucked his tongue. “Aw, lover boy. Now why’d you have to go and do that?”

It was sheer luck- and maybe a touch of skill, Rick would like to think- that he managed to draw first. The bullet left his gun with ease, without a second thought despite how long it had been since he’d had to fire on another person. The man’s body barely had time to slump to the floor, Rick’s bullet between his eyes, before the other three men were on them.

One man managed to wrestle the gun from Rick’s hands, another shot grazing his ear so that blood pattered down onto Rick’s face as he was pinned down. Beside him, he could hear Tara struggling against her own attacker. Rick wrestled one leg free and kicked out _hard_ , his foot meeting something solid that let out a grunt. He tried gouging at the eyes of the man on top of him, only to have his wrists sized by a second and pinned down against the barn floor.

“Got some fight in you, don’tcha?” The man above him bore down, his superior weight crushing the breath out of Rick as he fought. “That’s alright, sweetheart. Always makes it a little more fun for me that way.”

The stench of the men’s breath was thick and rancid against Rick’s face, a peal of unpleasant laughter rang out beside him where Tara was still fighting to hold her own, and his heart hammered so erratically he could feel it in his empty stomach.

He wasn’t sure what it was- something like muscle memory, having his body pinned, arms useless, someone he loved struggling against their attacker only feet away…but the moment the man above Rick leaned in a little closer, he acted.

It was horribly familiar, the taste of far too much blood filling his mouth and spilling warm and sticky down his throat, the way flesh popped beneath his teeth as it finally gave way, the shocked, gurgling scream of the man whose throat he’d sunk his teeth into.

Also familiar was the shock of the other men in the aftermath, the looks of terror and disbelief as they registered what he’d done.

That was always convenient, he thought. It made dispatching the other two men simple, straightforward. Tara used the moment of drawn-out horror to yank her attacker’s knife off his belt and sink it into his temple, while Rick snatched up his gun and fired a single bullet into the skull of the man who’d held his arms down.

The barn was silent again, but Rick’s ears rang. Tara was saying something, but he couldn’t make it out.

“We need to _go_ ,” she insisted, her voice faraway and wavering like Rick was submerged in water, and with her tugging gently on his wrist, they made their way back to the truck, where Tara jumped in the driver’s seat. “You aren’t driving,” she cut in before he could protest.

The rest of the ride home was silent.

* * *

They agreed to leave the truck to unload tomorrow without having to discuss it. It was deep into the nighttime, anyway- nobody was going to need sorghum this late.

As Rick went to walk away, Tara caught his wrist, her grip firm.

“You did what you had to do. We both did.” Rick’s jaw flexed and he nodded tightly, and Tara seemed to sense that he needed to be left alone.

For once, Rick was thankful that Judith was fast asleep when he got home- he’d tried to clean the worst of the blood off of himself on the ride back to Alexandria, but it was no use- his beard was matted with it, and he swore he could feel gristle lodged between his teeth.

He made the mistake of looking at himself in the mirror before he stepped in the shower. Red from his nose to halfway down his chest where the blood had dripped down his throat and soaked through his shirt that now lay in a heap on the floor. It was white, irrevocably stained- he’d have to scrap it.

He’d looked at himself like this before- a stranger peering in on someone unrecognizable, someone feral. He’d felt the same way when he’d gotten a look at himself when he and his group first arrived in Alexandria years ago. _I’ve never seen my face like that_ , he’d thought- his beard wild and bushy like it had never been before, his hair so long that it touched his shoulders when wet, his skin so caked with dirt that he left smudges on the pristine eggshell walls of Deanna’s home.

He’d felt that way when he found Gracie after unknowingly killing her father. After Carl died, the day he went out with Morgan during the war and they’d killed the people who’d escaped the Hilltop.

Each time, he’d scrubbed himself clean, nails digging in until he couldn’t see the blood _. I’ll be better this time_ , he always told himself. _I won’t get to that place again_.

And yet here he was. It occurred to him that he was very much like his ruined shirt, so stained that the color had become a part of him. Maybe some things could never wash out.

He turned on the water, letting the heat of the shower fog the mirror over.

* * *

He was warm. He was clean, having scrubbed himself head to toe, having brushed his teeth and flossed until his gums stung. His daughter was sleeping soundly upstairs, his bed was empty and calling to him after a long, harrowing day.

_And yet._

And yet, Rick found himself walking his well-beaten path toward Negan’s cell. He wished he could say he didn’t know what came over him- wished he could say it was in impulse, a passing whim.

But no. He walked with purpose, heart pounding, and it wasn’t until the door was locked behind him and he saw Negan stir in the shadows that he felt something close to calm.

“You’ve gotta work on your fuckin’ timing, bright boy. I just got to sleep.”

If it was anyone else, Rick would have apologized, and meant it. With Negan, he didn’t have to- he knew the man was happy for whatever company Rick would give him.

The thought struck a chord of discontent that resonated low in Rick’s chest, uneasy and constant. Was he taking advantage? Fuck knew that Negan would likely throw himself on the mercy of whomever would give him the time of day.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, I can hear you thinkin’ from all the way over here. Don’t even have to see you to know you’ve got those fuckin’ frown lines cutting so deep that your forehead’s about to crack. C’mere, darlin’. Pop a squat, tell Doctor Negan what’s goin’ on in that pretty head of yours.”

Rick snorted out a laugh- and didn’t it always surprise him how Negan managed to wring laughter out of him even when he thought he was bone-dry?- and drew the key out of his pocket, going to unlock the cell door. Negan’s voice stopped him just short of the lock.

“Do me a favor and light the lantern for me, Rick. Please.” It never failed to make Rick’s chest feel tight when he heard that word leave Negan’s lips. _Please_ , like Rick held some kind of power. He could have laughed again- here he was, Negan’s jailer, and he still felt like the other man held all the cards.

Negan hummed a low, pleased sound when Rick acquiesced and lit the lantern hanging by the door, a warm glow filling the room. It was only when Rick stepped into the cell that he realized he didn’t know what he was doing- he hadn’t come here with the intention of having sex. After the last time he’d come to Negan for punishment had gone so disastrously wrong, they hadn’t ventured back into their same games. Sure, Rick still came to him in the evenings, found himself tangled up with the other man, but it was different now. Not calm, never calm, but different in a way that Rick couldn’t describe. The first time he’d tried to put words to what they were doing, his mind had supplied him with words like _tender_ and _passionate_ and he’d immediately had to shut himself down.

Negan had a thick, quilted blanket draped all around him, his dark hair standing up in a crown of spikes on one side. When he patted the bed, Rick sank down beside him without question.

Rick watched Negan’s long fingers tracing nonsense patterns on his thigh and felt Negan watching him, waiting.

“I had to kill someone today,” Rick began, never one to sugarcoat or beat around the bush. “I was out with Tara. Easy run, getting supplies we already knew were there. Already had the truck loaded, and we were just- we just took ten minutes. And I keep thinkin’ to myself, _we should have just left as soon as the truck was loaded_ , but we didn’t. Ten minutes to sit around and gear up to drive back. It was four guys and they just- just snuck up on us. Had us cornered. I shot two of them, and Tara had to kill one, but-” he shook his head, gazing up at the ceiling. “He had me pinned. One had my arms and the other was on top of me-” he felt Negan tense beside him, “-and he leaned in just enough. I don’t know what made me do it. Instinct, maybe.”

“What’d you do? Get a knee in his fuckin’ shriveled-up hackey sack?” Negan asked in a tone much darker than his words betrayed.

“Nah,” Rick replied, “I bit his throat out.”

Negan’s hand went slack where it had been on Rick’s thigh, and if he hadn’t felt so utterly awful, Rick might have found it funny that he’d managed to shock Negan with his violence. As it was, it just made him feel worse- more inhuman.

_The man who laughed as he beat Glenn to death is disgusted by something you did. What’s that say about you?_

“Je-sus. I knew you had a fuckin’ mouth on you, but-”

“ _Negan_ ,” Rick snapped reproachfully, “it’s not a goddamned _joke_ -”

“Oh, I know it’s not. I know.” Negan squeezed his thigh in a way that Rick almost found reassuring. “That’s fuckin’ badass, Grimes. No, hear me the fuck out!” He reached out, tipping Rick’s face gently toward his own, always careful never to grab his jaw anymore. The thoughtfulness of it always unnerved Rick. “You’re a goddamned _survivor_ , Rick. That is some do-or-die shit right there. Not everybody’s got the fuckin’ guts for it.”

“Sometimes I wish I didn’t.”

“Like hell you do,” Negan retorted. “That shit right there? That kept you alive today. Kept Tara alive. It’s what got you here, kept your daughter alive. It’s why all the fuckin’ people here followed you into war, and why they’d do it again.”

“What kind of person does that make me?” Rick whispered, the question loaded. And somehow, like he always seemed to, Negan knew he wasn’t just asking about today. Rick had opened up more to Negan than he had to anyone else in a good, long time, and even still he’d only scratched the surface of the shit that Rick had done to keep himself and his family alive.

“I don’t fucking know, Rick. But you do know that I’m not gonna bullshit you, so I’ll say this, and I know that somewhere under all that fuckin’ Grimes stubbornness, you’ll hear me.” Negan’s fingers rubbed over Rick’s hand, flipping it over to massage the web of pink, fading scars around his thumb and across his palm. “I know that you love the people out there more than your own goddamned life, and that’s its own kind of morality. It’s worth a lot- a whole fucking lot- that you still give half a shit about anyone other than yourself. And you don’t even stop at half like a reasonable fucking person, nah, not you. You give the whole fuckin’ shit and then some, Rick Grimes.”

Despite himself, Rick felt a smile tugging up the corner of his lips. Negan’s thumb traced over his lifeline over and over again in a looping figure eight. The touch was chaste by their standards, but it sent Rick’s heart racing nonetheless.

“I know it don’t mean much comin’ from me, but you’re no monster. You feel it all. You let yourself- hell, you _make_ yourself feel it. You’re about as human as they come these days.”

It took a long minute before Rick’s throat was clear enough for him to respond, and even then, he could only manage two little words.

“Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JESUS i hate that it's been 2 months, believe me. just know that this story is going to be finished. thanks to everyone who's sticking with it.


	17. Appeal

Word of what Rick and Tara had been forced to do on their run was kept within a tight-knit circle, much to Rick’s relief. He wasn’t overly surprised- Tara, for all her talkativeness, wasn’t one to gossip, and she definitely understood the gravity of what they’d done.

Rick had a feeling that she told Michonne only so that Rick would be forced to talk to someone about it, because the next morning, his friend was already downstairs when he ambled into the kitchen to start breakfast. The mouthwatering snap-crackle of bacon cooking filled the air, and a pot of oatmeal bubbled beside it on the stove. Rick’s stomach gave a nearly violent growl that he felt all the way in his throat, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten in nearly a day. After he’d gotten home last night, he found that he couldn’t stomach it.

“What’s the occasion?” Rick asked, walking over to plant a kiss on the top of Judith’s head where she sat at the counter with a coloring book.

Michonne gave him a look that told him not to ask stupid questions. “Talked to Tara.”

“Mm,” Rick grunted, dodging her curious eyes in favor of intensely studying Judith’s rendition of a purple-and-blue duck. He wondered if she would get to see a real one in her lifetime- more and more, animals seemed to be coming back into the fold, birds gathering in fields and squirrels skittering up and down trees. “I figured. You didn’t need to make me breakfast, though.”

“I’m making _us_ breakfast because you still have bacon and Anne finished the last of ours yesterday. This,” she said, gesturing at the stove, “is for purely selfish reasons.” The friendly teasing made Rick’s shoulders relax. 

“Well, if that’s the case,” Rick said with a small smile, watching with a rumbling stomach as his friend turned out the sizzling meat onto a plate, his mouth watering. He tapped the edge of Judith’s book. “How about you move that to the table, sweet pea?”

From the outside looking in, it may have appeared to be a lighthearted family breakfast, with Judith eagerly scarfing down her food so she could get back to coloring and Rick and Michonne sitting at the counter together, sharing a plate. The reality wasn’t quite as homey.

“Is Tara alright?”

Michonne hummed assent. “She’s fine. Little shaken, but Rosita would sooner die than let her blame herself. She’s got people to talk to. Ro, Maggie, Jesus. There’s a woman at the Hilltop named Annie that used to be a trauma counselor- poor woman’s schedule’s just about jam-packed, but she’s doing a lot of good.”

“I’ll bet,” Rick said around a bite of bacon.

“I could ask her if she’d make some time to see you,” Michonne offered, and Rick immediately tensed. “Don’t be like that, Rick. And don’t you dare try to tell me you don’t need it.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I know she’d be more than happy to talk to you. She used to live at the Sanctuary, was one of the ones that moved out almost immediately. She’s grateful for what you did- for what everyone did during the war. She used to spend all day doing mindless work- cleaning guns and counting ammunition. She’s doing real good for people now- making a difference. Helping.” She squeezed Rick’s hand. “You did that.”

“ _We_ did that,” Rick corrected, “and I’m alright. Really.”

“Tara told me how you did it. What you had to do. Like with- with the claimers.”

Rick shifted in his seat, sweat pricking at his hairline. He hated thinking of that night- of what could have happened, of what very nearly _did_ happen. Of Carl, on the ground-

“I know what that did to you the first time. I don’t ever want you to think I don’t know. And I know you’ll never be proud of it. But you saved us that night, Rick. Not everyone has the guts to do that, but you do. And that’s a _good_ thing. It’s not because there’s something wrong with you- that’s just how much you love people. How much you love me, love Tara, love Carl.”

It wasn’t until Rick’s vision blurred, the plate in front of him now a blurry smear of yellow and reddish-brown, that he realized there were tears in his eyes. Michonne’s fingers were strong and laced with his, her shoulder steady against his shaking one, her voice low and quiet, just for him to hear.

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Rick.”

He wasn’t sure how long it was until he was breathing easily again, but when he finally was able to focus, Michonne’s hand was rubbing circles in the middle of his back and his cheeks were wet. They sat there together for a while, listening to Judith’s soft humming and the scratch of crayons on paper, and Rick slowly remembered how to breathe.

* * *

“What do you do up there all day now that the bridge is kaput, Rick? I bet you’re already onto the next fuckin’ save-the-world project, ain’tcha?” Negan was shamelessly half-sprawled on his bed, the quilt bunched up around his hips only because Rick had thrown it over him after their latest tryst. It was just the two of them, and fuck knew that if anyone was to walk in- which they wouldn’t- Negan’s nakedness would be the least of their concerns, considering Rick was still only half-dressed and sex-mussed. Negan found that he couldn’t look away from the other man’s mostly-bare body as he cleaned himself up and redressed, fascinated by the muscles rolling beneath his skin, which was growing more winter-pale by the day. Negan found that he loved it either way- that deep golden tan that Rick had during the summer was gorgeous, and the lighter tone he took on now let him appreciate the light smattering of freckles across Rick’s nose and chest.

Rick hummed affirmation as he pulled on his shirt- a toasty-looking grey sweater that matched the silver threading through his chestnut locks, which were getting long and curling at the ends again. “We’ve been workin’ to build a windmill here. Mostly to grind grain, but Eugene’s hopeful that in the future we’ll be able to harness energy. Still a shame about the solar panels.” There wasn’t any accusation in Rick’s voice that Negan could unearth. He supposed that maybe there was a point where they just came to look past the smaller things- Alexandria’s fire-bombed houses and solar panels, the Sanctuary’s ruined windows and gates. Rick didn’t seem like the kind of man to hold grudges over _things_. Things could be rebuilt, replaced, and if need be, people could learn to live without. It was the way of the world now.

 _People_ , however- people, Rick held close to his heart and never let go, Negan feared.

“Sounds like a fuckload of work,” Negan commented as he sorrowfully watched Rick step back into his discarded jeans. “And it’s gettin’ nippy out. Every time you’ve come in here this week you’ve been pink-cheeked like a schoolboy with a crush, and I _know_ all that ain’t for my sake.”

Rick let out a playful scoff- or maybe a real scoff, who the hell was Negan to say? Each day that passed, he was less and less sure of where the other man stood with him- maybe because every time he saw Rick, he felt more and more undone. “There’s been flurries already. Nothin’s stuck yet, but…” Rick ran a hand through his hair, unruly from Negan’s own fingers, and stepped out of the cell, pulling the door firmly closed behind him and turning the key. A small, irritating part of Negan itched to ask him to stay a while. “We’ll get it done before winter settles in for good or we’ll have to restart come spring. Either way, it’ll get done.” He made to leave, turning to blow out the lantern lit beside the door, when Negan, recklessly, _foolishly_ , blurted out something he knew would make Rick pause.

“What would you say to the possibility of parole?”

Uncertainty crossed Rick’s features, doubt and hesitation and distrust dancing along his handsome face in the candlelight, and Negan jumped on it before the man could immediately say no. “I’m not sayin’ to just fuckin’ cut me loose. But it’s been two years since I’ve stepped outside, Rick. Two _fucking_ years since I’ve seen the sky, two years of these same four fucking walls. Hell, even back in the old world they used to let prisoners have some rec time.”

Rick stood stoic and out of reach, his expression carefully blank. “In the old world, we had real prisons. Guards, wardens, secure facilities away from the rest of society. If I was going to let you outside, it would be around civilians. _Children_.”

“You got cuffs, don’t you?” Negan had to bite his tongue to hold back from going down a dirty-minded rabbit hole that led to Rick stripped bare and cuffed to the headboard. “You’ve got guns. And _you_ know that I’m not about to do anything fuckin’ stupid.”

Rick’s brows arched dramatically. “Do I?”

Negan made an exasperated noise. “The number of fucking times I’ve had you bent over and at my mercy-” Rick winced, and Negan drew back and re-approached from another angle. “You feel safe enough to unlock my cell and come inside with the fuckin’ lion. If I was going to try something, we both know it would be smarter to do it then, when it’s just the two of us in here, instead of out there when I’m sure everybody and their fuckin’ momma’ll be keeping tabs on me.”

Rick scratched over his beard, the sound sweet in Negan’s ears, his brows knitting as he weighed his options. “What would you want to do out there?”

Negan’s breath caught in his throat. _Is he actually fucking considering it?_ “I- I don’t even fucking know, Rick. Anything you’ll let me do. Hell, just let me take a few breaths of air that doesn’t smell like my own piss.”

“If it smelled that bad down here, I wouldn’t be comin’ around this often.”

Negan couldn’t stop grinning. “Don’t be so fucking literal, baby.”

“I mean it, though, Negan. What- do you want me to just walk you around town like a dog and then put you back in your kennel?”

“I knew there was a kinky motherfucker in you,” Negan smirked, and Rick gave him an unimpressed look. “Honestly, I don’t know what the hell I want to do out there, Rick. I just need something, you know? A change of fucking scenery. Hell, you can even put me to work. Have me do some community service. Help you with your tomatoes or haul some lumber or some shit. Work on your windmill, have me make up for blowin’ your solar panels to kingdom-fucking-come.” He hoped that his eagerness wasn’t coming across as what it truly was- desperate longing for a life that even he was too afraid to hope for. Hell, he knew he hadn’t earned it. Maybe once upon a time, in another world with Lucille if he’d treated her right. If he hadn’t strayed like the mangy dog he’d been- the one he wanted to believe he no longer was.

As much as Negan prided himself on being able to read Rick like an open book, the other man’s expression was so carefully guarded now that Negan knew better than to believe he could crack it. It didn’t stop him from trying, though- every twitch of Rick’s mouth or ticking between his brows sent equal parts excitement and dread down his spine. _Please say yes, baby_ , he thought. _Fuck, just give me a maybe. Give me something._

Finally, Rick spoke, his voice measured and even.

“I’d have to talk to Michonne. And Aaron, Daryl, Rosita, Tara…and Maggie…” he trailed off, the wind visibly leaving his sails. If Negan had been a wiser man, maybe he would have stopped hoping right then and there. Would have realized that not one of those people was going to give the green light to let him out of this hole in the ground.

He’d never claimed to be wise.

“Of course! Fuckin’ round up the whole merry gang, Rick. I’ll be right here waitin’ for the verdict.”

Something in Rick’s expression shifted for a moment before smoothing back out. “Alright.” He blew out the candle without ceremony, and only when it was dark as midnight in the tiny room did he step up to the bars, fingers closing over Negan’s that were already gripping them tight, that Rick gave him a kiss so sinfully sweet that Negan swore he could still taste it on his lips after the man left.

* * *

 _Verdict_. The word played over and over in Rick’s head as he walked toward Michonne and Anne’s house. Maybe it was foolish- it almost certainly was, in fact- but he couldn’t help but consider the implications: judge, jury, trial. Michonne, of all people, would understand the need for these things. Her most recent project in rebuilding civilization had been drawing up a charter between the communities- rules and regulations for how people were to treat each other and what happened when they didn’t act accordingly. Her time as an attorney- and a damn good one, if Rick had to guess- was coming in handy more and more these days as they moved more and more toward a functioning society.

Of course, Michonne would also know that Rick asking for lenience toward Negan wasn’t a selfless act- and it was for that very reason that he was going to her first. Michonne, level-headed and honest, wouldn’t shy away from telling him the truth if he was asking for something that was completely out of line.

He already felt like he was, anyway. God knew that Maggie and Daryl and Rosita would feel that way, and he couldn’t blame them. And yet, despite it all, despite himself and his better judgment, Rick _wanted_. When Negan had asked him for time outside the cell, he’d unknowingly played into fantasies that Rick could barely stand to acknowledge inside his own head: fantasies of Negan beside him in the open air, hands buried beside Rick’s in gardening soil. Of the two of them sitting side by side by the pond or venturing outside the walls together to find lumber for Alexandria’s latest project. Impossible, selfish things that Rick loathed himself for wanting. Hell, he didn’t know when he’d started wanting these things at all- when he’d gone from craving Negan’s attention only when he needed release to going to him just to talk. Looking forward to talking to him, to hearing that deep, creaky laugh and volleying back with his own sharp-tongued teasing.

 _Of course you’d fall for the one person that you can’t have_ , Rick admonished himself, and then stopped dead in his tracks in the middle of the street halfway between Aaron’s house and Michonne’s, shocked by his own thoughts.

 _No_ , he thought sternly, both in reprimand and denial. _That’s not what this is. It’s not._

And yet, even as he forced himself to swallow down the confusing swirl of emotion that had risen up in him, some small, defiant part of him kept rising up, its whisper quiet but insistent.

_Yes._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short kind of transition-y chapter, sorry, etc etc. i swear this fic is going somewhere, it's just taking time to get there! thanks to everyone who's sticking with it <3

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title comes from one of my favorite Rick songs, [The Black Market by Rise Against.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMC1OIMaEE8) I've been waiting ages to use it as inspiration for a title lmao.


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